VTB still planning to increase Bank of Moscow stake to 100% - Kostin
MOSCOW. April 21 (Interfax) - VTB , whose current share interest in Bank of Moscow is 46.48%, still plans to increase that to 100%, Andrei Kostin, VTB's president and CEO and chairman of the Bank of Moscow board of directors, said during an extraordinary Bank of Moscow shareholder meeting on Thursday.
"VTB's stake in Bank of Moscow is 46.48%. We acquired it from the Moscow administration," Kostin said.
VTB is holding onto its plans to increase its stake, Kostin said. "We are prepared for further work on increasing it not only to controlling, but to 100%," he said. And the bank is prepared to work with all its shareholders, he said. "There are no grounds for a shareholder conflict," he said.
Bank of Moscow's key job is increasing its capitalization, Kostin said.
Bank of Moscow shareholders will be voting on a new strategy for the bank, he said. "When that strategy is put together, management will implement it. Bank managers are the executors," he said.
Meanwhile, the Bank of Moscow shareholders have elected the bank's acting president Mikhail Kuzovlev to the post on a permanent basis, an Interfax correspondent attending the extraordinary shareholder meeting on Thursday reported.
Kostin himself has announced Kuzovlev's election. "I congratulate Mikhail Kuzovlev and wish him success in his work on behalf of shareholders," he said, adding that 99.97% of those having the right to vote had backed Kuzovlev.
One Bank of Moscow shareholder attending the meeting, Mikhail Libez, directed attendees' attention to the fact that the documents for the meeting pertaining to the candidates' biographies said "In the framework of legal case with the ruling by the Tverskoi regional court of the city of Moscow of April 11 [two candidates] are relieved of their responsibilities" - bank President Andrei Borodin and First Vice President Dmitry Akulinin.
A new Bank of Moscow board of directors will be elected soon, and VTB personnel could join the management team, Kostin said. Near-term plans include another regular shareholders meeting that will confirm the new board, he said.
Bank of Moscow plans to announce the date of its AGM soon, he said.
Mikhail Kuzovlev said he is not excluding the possibility that he might invite colleagues from VTB to Bank of Moscow, but that Bank of Moscow would keep its brand, team and banking technology, but that team would be supplemented. "We'll definitely be looking for the best managers on the market," he said.