Bank Rossiya discloses Timchenko stake
MOSCOW. March 16 (Interfax) - St Petersburg-based Bank Rossiya has disclosed that billionaire Gennady Timchenko owns an effective stake of approximately 7% in the bank.
The bank, Russia's 35th largest by assets, according to the Interfax-100 ranking at the end of 2009, has disclosed its beneficiaries in line with Central Bank instructions for banks that are part of the deposit insurance system. Rossiya published a preliminary list of direct shareholders in January.
The bank has now named its ultimate beneficiaries. It says that Timchenko is the beneficiary of the Luxembourg-registered Maples S.A., which owns 72.77% of LLC Transoil CIS. Transoil CIS owns a 9.57% voting stake in Bank Rossiya, giving Timchenko hid effective stake of around 7%.
Timchenko is co-owner of oil trader Gunvor, gas producer NOVATEK , oil and gas sector engineering construction firm Stroytransgaz and a number of other assets. Forbes recently estimated Timchenko is worth $1.9 billion and ranked him 536th in its latest world rich-list. Bank Rossiya says Timchenko is a Finnish citizen, but it does not say where he is domiciled. Forbes says he is resident of Switzerland.
Yury Kovalchuk, Bank Rossiya's biggest shareholder, owns a 30.4% voting stake directly and another 3% voting shares via the Non-profit Partnership Business Initiatives Support.
Other Bank Rossiya shareholders include Dmitry Shamalov and Dmitry Gorelov, each with 12.6% voting stakes. The cellist Sergei Roldugin, who is a People's Artist of Russia and godfather to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's eldest daughter, owns 3.9% of the bank.
Andrei Katkov and Yevgeny Malov each own a 3.17%-votinmg stake. They used to control similar stakes in the bank in the capacity of shareholders in CJSC Kinex - St Petersburg, which they owned together with Gennady Timehcnko and Adolf Smirnov.
LLC Aktsept and LLC Relaks own 38% and 3.6% of the bank, respectively. Their beneficiaries are Mikhail Shelomov and Svetlana Krivonogikh, respectively.
The SeverGroup's Alexei Mordashov owns a 7.18% voting stake, and the Bank Rossiya Group's Abros Investment Company owns 6%.
Bank Rossiya controls the SOGAZ insurance group, which includes CJSC Leader, the management company for the Gasfond non-government pension fund. Leader and Gazfond are both shareholders in Gazprombank, which used to be part of the Gazprom group.
The Central Bank says commercial banks that don't disclose information about their true beneficiaries will lose the right to accept deposits from clients.
Banks have until March 27 to make the disclosure, of all persons with "direct or indirect influence over operations."
The order, which was issued on December 27, 2009, applies to shareholders with more than 1% of votes as well as corporate entities that hold stock in the bank, all along the chain of ownership to the end beneficiary.
Banks that fail to meet the disclosure deadline will be in violation of the rules governing participation in the deposit insurance system, which would make the bank ineligible to take deposits from individuals and trigger Central Bank action to prohibit all operations with deposits.
A total of 231 banks have already published their disclosures on the Central Bank's web site.
Many big banks have published their disclosures on their own web sites. This includes state-owned Sberbank Russia and Gazprombank and private-sector banks Alfa Bank , Promsvyazbank , MDM Bank, Nomos Bank , Bank St. Petersburg , Russian Standard Bank and Bank Rossiya.