Potanin confirms long-term plans to hold stake in Tinkoff Bank

MOSCOW. March 17 (Interfax) - Interros Group's investment in the Tinkoff financial services group is long-term, Interros owner Vladimir Potanin told reporters on the sidelines of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) congress.

"Why sell it if we've gone in for the long-term?" Potanin said when asked about the possible sale of Tinkoff Bank.

Interros bought a 35% stake in TCS Group , the parent company of Tinkoff Bank and Tinkoff Insurance, from its founder Oleg Tinkov at the end of April 2022.

"We discussed this with the team. They had some concerns about the appearance of a new investor, they were, after all, accustomed to the previous founder, gotten used to him, as they say, and the appearance of a new investor caused worries for them," Potanin said.

He said Interros assured Tinkoff Bank's management that it had "long-term plans to participate in this business."

"Secondly, we respect the team and the management culture they have built," Potanin said.

"We have great respect for the team that this bank created and that now leads it. We are actually a financial shareholder, though a large one, and in some sense passive, meaning our objective was not to go in and set some kind of new rules, but go in as investors, because we believe in what this team is doing and the prospects that this bank has," Potanin said.

He also said that Interros sees Tinkoff as a fintech company rather than as a bank.