ABH Holdings intends to defend rights to its Ukrainian bank in international arbitration

MOSCOW. Sept 25 (Interfax) - ABH Holdings S.A., which owned Sense Bank in Ukraine (formerly Alfa Bank) before its nationalization, plans to defend its rights to the bank in international arbitration.

"ABHH is forced to defend its rights in international arbitration to protect both its own interests and the legitimate interests of its shareholders, such as Unicredit," Ukrainian media reported, citing a message from the holding.

The holding considers the nationalization of Sense Bank as an act of illegal expropriation, which contradicts Ukraine's obligations under the bilateral investment agreement with the Belgian-Luxembourg Economic Union.

ABHH has also been forced to terminate its agreement with the European investor, Karswell Limited on the sale of the bank. "In our opinion, Karswell was well-suited to preserve Sense Bank as a successful private banking institution. We made the decision to sell Sense Bank to Karswell after the Ukrainian authorities imposed initial restrictions on the bank based on the identities of certain minority shareholders. Now, after the full expropriation of Sense Bank by the Ukrainian authorities, the sale is no longer possible," the statement said.

The holding is convinced that the issue related to the aforementioned shareholders was only used as a reason to illegally take Sense Bank away.

In terms of assets (about 3.4% of the assets of the entire banking system of Ukraine), Sense Bank ranked 11th among 65 banks operating in Ukraine as of mid-2023. It was nationalized in July under a special law as a systemically important bank with majority shareholders from the sanctioned Alfa Group.

According to the financial institution, the bank serves about 3 million individuals, 55,000 legal entities and 85,000 individual entrepreneurs. The bank employs about 4,000 people.

The main shareholders of ABHH are Mikhail Fridman, who is under Ukrainian sanctions, with 32.8632%, Pyotr Aven, with 12.4018% and Andrei Kosogov with 40.9614%. Minority shareholders of Sense Bank before nationalization were The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research with 3.8736% and Italian Unicredit s.p.a. with 9.9%.

ABHH announced in June that it had reached an agreement on the sale of a 75.6% stake in Sense Bank to an international investor for $1.