Trust Bank sold 90% of Tochka to minority shareholder for 41.5 bln rubles

MOSCOW. Aug 25 (Interfax) - Trust Bank has sold 90.01% of the shares in JSC Tochka for 41.5 billion rubles to its minority shareholder.

Trust said in a statement that the deal to sell the asset had been closed.

Tochka's minority shareholder with a 9.9% stake is Catalytic People.

"The bank of non-core assets [Trust] has closed one of the largest transactions this year. We are pleased with the result because we sold the bank for almost twice as much as we paid for it," Alexander Sokolov, President and CEO of Trust, was quoted as saying.

"Objectively, the team that worked on the project turned Tochka into a fully-fledged bank, providing it with a license and strengthening its competencies. It is important that we seamlessly migrated the customer base from Otkritie to Tochka's own license. As a result, under Trust's management, the number of customers increased by 30%, and the bank overshot its profit target nearly three times over. This increased the value of the asset and its sale for a multiple of 3x equity," Sokolov said.

Tochka is a digital bank that provides a range of financial and non-financial services for entrepreneurs and enterprises. The bank operates with its own universal license. The deal includes JSC and all subsidiaries, including Tochka Bank, whose equity is 8.7 billion rubles. JSC Tochka's equity is 14.4 billion rubles. JSC Tochka's net profit to Russian Accounting Standards rose 2.2-fold in 2022 to 6.2 billion rubles.

Trust Bank, which owns 90.01% of Tochka, held an auction to sell the stake in July. The sale price was 41.5 billion rubles, with starting price of 24.7 billion rubles.

Reports have said senior management of Tochka and a consortium of investors that includes Vladimir Potanin's Interros and other large companies, intended to consolidate 100% of Tochka's shares.

To accomplish this, the consortium would exercise the pre-emptive right held by Tochka's minority shareholder, Catalytic People, which the consortium controls. The consortium currently controls 9.99% of Tochka's shares through Catalytic People, which the Filev family, owners of S7 Group, had previously owned.

Besides Interros, the consortium includes other currently unspecified companies.

A number of technology companies, particularly VK , are also considering participation in the consortium, according to press releases that Tochka and Interros issued in July.

Otkritie, Qiwi and Tochka agreed in June 2018 to establish a joint company called JSC Tochka, a service for small and medium-sized businesses. Otkritie then became the owner of 50% plus one share of Tochka and Qiwi 40%, while the remaining 10% minus one share belonged to Tochka's management through Catalytic People.

Qiwi sold 40% of Tochka to Otkritie for 8.2 billion rubles in September 2021. Otkritie, which held 90% of the company's shares after the deal, then sold them on to Trust in 2022.