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The Rossiya Bank (Bank Rossiya (Russian: Банк «Росси́я»), in Russian: Акционерный коммерческий банк Россия, АКБ Россия) is a Russian joint stock bank founded on June 27, 1990. The company's headquarters are in Saint Petersburg.
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| Company type | Public company joint stock company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Financial services |
| Founded | 1990 |
| Headquarters | Saint Petersburg, Russia |
Key people | Kirill Krivoschekov, CEO Yury Kovalchuk, Board chairman |
| Products | Financial services |
| Revenue | 71,098,900,000 Russian ruble (2017)  |
| Rating | A+ (ACRA) (2017)[1] |
| Website | www.abr.ru |
The bank has been associated with the Vladimir Putin regime in Russia. The Pandora Papers leak revealed that the bank built a network of shadow companies that kept offshore wealth for Russian elites.[2]
Communist Party ownership and 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt
On August 23, 1990, a secret memorandum from Vladimir A. Ivashko, who was Gorbachev's deputy general secretary, was issued to organize the transfer of CPSU funds, CPSU financing and support of its operations through associations, ventures, foundations, etc. which are to act as invisible economics.[3][4][lower-alpha 1] Bank Rossiya was one of the hundreds of entreprises that CPSU financiers used to funnel the party gold away.[6]
In 1990, the CPSU committee of the Leningrad Oblast became Rossiya Bank largest shareholder (48.4%),[7][8][lower-alpha 3] but after the coup attempt in August 1991 the bank's activity was frozen on 2 September 1991 as it was CPSU-related.[6][14] It was the first commercial bank to hold accounts for the foreign economic operations of both the regional committee of the CPSU and the local management of the KGB.[lower-alpha 4]
In December 1991 its activity was resumed, as the shares had been redeemed on 29 December 1991 by some member ventures of the Leningrad Association of Joint Ventures,[lower-alpha 5] shares of which were held by Vladimir Yakunin, Yuriy Kovalchuk, Mikhail Markov, Viktor Myachin, Andrei Fursenko, Sergey Fursenko, Yury Nikolayev.[14]
JV Neva Chance
The Austrian Russian joint venture JV Neva Chance received funds from the Revival of St. Petersburg Foundation (Russian: фонд «Возрождение Петербурга»), which was co-founded by Anatoly Sobchak and its CEO Alexander Margolis (Russian: Александр Марголис).[20][21][lower-alpha 6] A Los Angeles branch of the St. Petersburg Foundation was established by Mark Davidovich Lvovich (Russian: Марк Давидович Львович; b. Soviet Union), also known as Mark Neumann (Russian: Марк Нейман), who founded and headed the California firm Trada that received several hundred thousand dollars of "funds of UNI-REM" (Russian: "УНИ-РЭМ") which Sergei Bagaev (Russian: Сергей Багаев),[lower-alpha 7] a colleague of Anatoly Sobchak at Leningrad University, headed.[23] Leon Weinstein (Russian: Леон Вайнштейн), an assistant to Neuman at the Los Angeles branch, and his wife Gulnara Afanasyeva (Russian: Гульнара Афанасьева) were active with the St. Petersburg Foundation when it sponsored Sobchak's visit to Los Angeles.[23][lower-alpha 8]
JV Neva Chance established thirty companies including JV Casino Neva.[20]
Putin's capital support from Leningrad casinos
Beginning in 1991, Vladimir Putin was St Petersburg's chairman of the supervisory board for casinos and gambling (Russian: Председатель наблюдательного совета по казино и азартным играм) and, in 1993, began issuing gambling licenses in which shares were gained by the city of St Petersburg in the company Neva Chance (Russian: «Нева-Шанс») which owned the first St Petersburg casino AOZT Casino (Russian: АОЗТ «Казино») because it had the same address and phone numbers as city hall, but later it became JV Casino Neva (Russian: СП «Казино Нева») and opened on 19 August 1991.[24][25][26][27][28][lower-alpha 9] In 1992 or 1993 it changed its name to Laguna, then in 1997 to Admiral Club or more simply known as Admiral.[27] According to the Yakuza Kinichi Kamiyasu[33] who supplied slot machines with cash prizes to St Petersburg casinos in the 1990s from his Stockholm, Sweden, company Dyna Computer Service AB which was a subsidiary of the Masimichi Iida (Japanese: 飯田正道) (Russian: брата шефа Киничи из Осака Ииды Мисамичи the brother of Chef Kinichi from Osaka, Iida Misamichi) owned Osaka firm, Dyna Company Ltd.,[34] the criminals Gennady Petrov (Russian: Геннадий Петров),[35] Alexander Malyshev (Russian: Александр Малышев),[36] and Sergey Kuzmin (Russian: Сергей Кузьмин) operated the casino through a Vladimir Putin issued license in order to establish JV Petrodin (Russian: СП «Петродин») in 1991.[27] JV Petrodin, which Kamiyasu owned a 35% stake and Gennady Petrov and Sergey Kuzmin owned a 65% stake through their company BXM (Russian: «БХМ»), used the money from the casinos to provide capital for Bank Rossiya.[27][28][37][38]
Capital outflows from the Soviet Union and Russia
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In March 1992, the Yeltsin government contracted Kroll Associates to track down and find very large sums of money that had been removed from the Soviet Union prior to the August 1991 putsch on the Russian White House.[39][40] In 1992, First Deputy Prime Minister Yegor Timurovich Gaidar said, "Last year saw large-scale privatization by the nomenklatura, privatization by officials for their own personal benefit."[41] Gaidar called the Communists and KGB officials criminals and that a "a vigorous search" for the money trails from state-owned capital had flowed abroad virtually unchecked before the collapse of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1991.[40] On March 15, 1992, the Russian government froze all capital outflows from Russia.[40] On April 4, 1992, Yeltsin issued “The fight against corruption in the public service” decree to provide for maximum transparency of officials and their institutions by providing a listing of their financial obligations, liabilities, securities, income, bank deposits, real estate holdings and their personal property and to prohibit officials from owning businesses.[42] In April 1992, Kroll Associates began their investigations with Joseph Serio heading the Kroll Associates efforts in Moscow.[43][lower-alpha 10] Also, Joseph Rosetti, the vice chairman of Kroll Associates, was in Moscow to assist.[40] The Kroll Associates determined that more than $14 billion in 1991 real dollars had been transferred from Switzerland to New York prior to the August 1991 putsch.[41] Also, the Communist Party of the former Soviet Union along with other government agencies, such as the KGB, had transferred more than $40 billion in 2014 real dollars out of the country.[39][lower-alpha 11] The assets of the Vnesheconombank were frozen during the investigation.[41] However, numerous transactions occurred to bypass the capital flow restrictions often with the British Barclays Bank in Cyprus acting a money laundering center for public officials from Saint Petersburg and Moscow.[41][lower-alpha 12] According to Valery Makharadze, the government's chief inspector, many joint stock companies were formed to provide an illegal means for capital outflows from Russia, such as the Leningrad Association of Joint Ventures[lower-alpha 13] and KOLO.[45][41][lower-alpha 14] Numerous officials became wealthy Russian oligarchs including numerous former KGB officials, prominent Communists such as Oleg Belyakov and other former Communists who headed the party Central Committee department that dealt with the defense industry, as well as Leonid Kravchenko, who was the former head of the state television and radio company.[41] Jules Kroll, the head of the Kroll Associates, uncovered hundreds of illicit transactions with massive capital outflows.[46] This outflow of capital from the Soviet Union and Russia directly contributed to severe economic conditions in Russia during Boris Yeltsin's second term, leading to its collapse, and resulting in the age of Vladimir Putin as the President of Russia.[39]
Organized crime links
From 1998 to 2000 OCG Organized Crime Gang Tambov Gang leaders Gennady Petrov and Sergei Kuzmin each owned 2.2% of bank shares, and they were represented at meetings by Andrei Shumkov, who sat on the Bank's board of directors from 1998 to 2000 (as the Vedomosti business newspaper reported). In 1998 and 1999, 14.2% of Rossia's stock belonged to the St Petersburg firms Ergen, Forward Ltd and Fuel Investment Company (TIK), all associated with Mr Shumkov. Mr Shumkov and Mr Kuzmin owned Ergen, while BKhM and Finance Petroleum Company, both affiliated with Mr Kuzmin and Mr Petrov, were TIK co-owners.[47]
Putin as president of Russia
As of January 1, 2005, its major shareholders were Yuriy Kovalchuk with 37.6%, Nikolai Shamalov with 9.7%, Dmitry Gorelov with 9.7% and Alexei Mordashov's Severstal group with 8.8%.[7][8][14] As of 2006, its major shareholders were Yuriy Kovalchuk (30.4%), Dmitry Gorelov (12.58%), Nikolay Shamalov (12.58%), JSC Transoil CIS (9.54%), JSC Severstal Group (7.15%), JSC Accept (3.93%) – owned by grandson of Vladimir Putin's uncle Michael Shelomov,[48] JSC Relax (3.65%), "Assistance to Business Initiatives" Non-Commercial Enterprise (3.08%), Russian Federal Property Fund (2.93%).[49]
On December 28, 2006, Fitch Ratings assigned the bank negative ratings (Long Term issuer Default rating B−, Short Term rating B, National Long Term rating BB− (RUS)[50]). As a subsidiary of the bank, ABRos Investment Company, had signed a non-transparent deal aiming to buy a considerable share of the Ren TV Media Holding (see below).[51] During the 2012–13 financial crisis in Cyprus, more than one third (26.3 billion rubles) of Rossiya Bank's total cash (85.4 billion rubles) was frozen in Cypriot accounts.[52][lower-alpha 15] On June 28, 2013, its major shareholders were Yuri Kovalchuk 30%, Dmitri Gorelov and Nikolai Shamalov 10.5% each, Gennady Timchenko 8%, Gazprom about 16%, Alexei Mordashov 6%.[52] In October 2021, Svetlana Krivonogikh had a 3% stake in Rossiya Bank.[53]
The U.S. government has characterized Rossiya Bank as Putin’s personal cashbox.[2]
Pandora Papers
The Pandora Papers leak revealed that Rossiya Bank built a network of shadow companies that kept offshore wealth for Russian elites.[2]
On March 20, 2014, the United States Government Office of Foreign Assets Control added Rossiya Bank to the Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN) as part of sanctions taken in response to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, placing restrictions on US trade with the bank.[54][55][56][57] Visa and Mastercard stopped processing the bank's payment as a result.[58]
In response Vladimir Putin announced that he would open a ruble-only account with Bank Rossiya and would make it the primary bank in the newly annexed Crimea as well as giving the right to service payments on Russia's $36 billion wholesale electricity market – which gave the bank $112 million annually from commission charges alone.[59] Bank Rossiya also announced plans to expand into the Crimean market, becoming the first major Russian bank to do so.[58]
As of January 2019, Rossiya Bank has become the most important investor in Russia's development of its annexation of Crimea during the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.[60]
On February 22, 2022, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced sanctions against five banks, including Rossiya Bank.[61] Additional sanctions prohibiting correspondent banking relationships were imposed in December 2023.[62]
| Date | Asset worth | Rank in banks ranking |
|---|---|---|
| April 1, 2005 | 12.2 billion rubles | 68 in Russia |
| October 1, 2006 | 30.2 billion rubles | 44 in Russia |
| April 1, 2010 | 105.9 billion rubles | 37 in Russia |
| April 1, 2015 | 508 billion rubles[63] | 17 in Russia |
| October 1, 2020 | 1.072 trillion rubles | 14 in Russia |
- In February 2021, Russian rating agency Expert RA assigned Rossiya Bank a rating of "ruAA" with a "stable" outlook.[64]
- In August 2023, Rossiya Bank entered the top 10 largest credit institutions by volume of deposits in July 2023 in a rating compiled by the financial service Brobank.ru. Experts assessed banks based on criteria such as the volume of time deposits, funds for payments through bank cards and other funds placed with the bank for a predetermined period. As a result, in July the amount of deposits of individuals in Bank Rossiya in July amounted to 204.62 billion rubles.[65]
The head of its board of directors were, in order, Vladimir Kolovay and Andrei Katkov. The current head of the board of directors is Yury Kovalchuk, who has held this position since 2004.[66][67][68][69]
Director General and Head of the Management Committee:
- 1993–1995: Vitaly Savelyev
- 1995–1998: Viktor Myachin
- 1998–1999: Mikhail Markov
- 1999–2004: Viktor Myachin
- September 2004 – April 2006: Mikhail Klishin[lower-alpha 16]
- April 2006 – June 2023: Dmitri Lebedev (also resigned as a chairman of the Board of Directors)
On September 24, 2004, Viktor Myachin resigned from the Director General position and Mikhail Klishin, who had been the First Deputy Director General and held a 0.197% share, was appointed acting Director General.[72]
On December 10, 2004, Mikhail Klishin was appointed Director General, as the Central Bank of the Russian Federation had agreed to this decision.[73]
On April 3, 2006, the board of directors appointed Dmitry Lebedev Director General and Head of the Management Committee. Mikhail Klishin (holder of a 0.159% share) was appointed First Deputy Director General. The Management Committee appointed on that day: Dmitry Lebedev, Oleg Anufriev, Alexander Germanov, Konstantin Gorbachyov, Faniya Kabalina, Mikhail Klishin, Galina Lebedeva, Alexander Markin, Oleg Filatov.[74]
On December 26, 2006, the board of directors of the Bank elected its new Management Committee consisting of Dmitry Lebedev (Head, Director General), Alexander Germanov, Konstantin Gorbachyov, Faniya Kabalina, Mikhail Klishin, Alexander Markin and Boris Tikhonenko.[75]
As of 2005, the bank is a shareholder of the following companies[76][77]):
- JSC ABRos Investment Company (100%)
- JSC Alfa Invest (100%)
- JSC ABR Trust (100%)
- JSC ABR Security Company (100%)
- JSC ZEST (100%)
- JSC Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti Editorial House (20%, increased up to 35% in 2005)
- JSC newspaper Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti (20%, increased up to 35% in 2005[78][79])
- JSC Fund for Regional Development of St. Petersburg (15%)
- JSC Center for Innovative Management (10%).
- JSC Red Chemist (7.36%).
In January 2005 it turned out that ABRos, a subsidiary of the bank, and Accept, one of its shareholders, held a 49.97% share and a 13.5% share of the insurance group SOGAZ Ltd., respectively[80][81] after a 49.979% share of the SOGAZ group had been sold by the Russian gas giant Gazprom to an unnamed purchaser for 1.69 billion rubles on July 26, 2004,[82] and in August 2004 Gazprom had sold 26% more of SOGAZ for 879.3 million rubles.[83][84]
In November 2005 ABRos Investment Company (chairman of the board of Directors since September 11, 2006: Lyubov Sovershaeva)[85] purchased a 37% share of the Petersburg TV and Radio Company.[86][87] Also it owns a considerable share of the Media Holding Ren TV (as of December 2006,[88]) On December 18, 2006 Lyubov Sovershaeva also became the chairman of the board of Directors of the Ren TV Media Holding (replacing Alexey Germanovich, a Severstal Group representative).
As of 2008 and later in 2016, Rossiya Bank has large investments in National Media Group (Russian: Национальная Медиа Группа (НМГ)) both directly and indirectly through its 100% ownership of Abros which has a stake in National Media Group.[6][89][90]
In August 2010, Sobinbank, an asset of Gazenergobank that had been formed by Alexander Mamut, was acquired by Rossiya Bank when it took over Gazenergobank.[91]
In the summer of 2012, ABR Management was established to manage Rossiya Bank's assets.[91]
In 2016, Rossiya Bank's subsidiaries included Channel One, Channel 5, and Ren TV of the National Media Group CJSC, the leasing group Zest, and Sogaz OJSC.[91][92]
In 2018, Rossiya Bank, Yuri Kovalchuk and Nikolai Shamalov through their investments in the National Media Group and its 100% ownership of Synerdzhy LLC (Russian: ООО "Синерджи") and Otkrytie TV LLC (Russian: OOO Открытие ТВ) which is 100% owned by Media allians LLC (Russian: OOO Медиа Альянс) in which Rossiya Bank has an 80% stake, have close relationships with the John C. Malone associated Liberty Media.[90]
Beginning on January 20, 2020, the processing center of JSC AB Russia (Russian: АО «АБ «РОССИЯ») provides processing services for the issue of bank payment cards and support for acquiring projects of Evrofinance Mosnarbank.[93]
- Richard L. Palmer, president of Cachet International, Inc., was the CIA station chief at the United States Embassy in Moscow from 1992 to 1994.[4][5]
- Russian Video was headed by TV director Dmitry Rozhdestvensky. It was associated with Andrei Balyasnikov, the former Assistant Secretary of the Leningrad City Committee for Ideology, who died in a car accident while Rozhdestvensky headed Russian Video, the retired KGB colonel Vladimir Grunin who was in charge of spying on foreign consulates in Leningrad and Mikhael Mirilashvili, also known as Misha Kutaissky. In 1997, the Media Most Group gained control of Russian Video and Filipp Bobkov, who masterminded the transfer of the Communist Party gold in the early 1990s, headed it until Media Most's liquidation in May 2001.[9][10]
- Upon Rossiya Bank's registration on 27 June 1990, the Vladislav Reznik associated firm Russian Video (Russian: "Русское видео")[lower-alpha 2] held a 13 million ruble stake compared to the CPSU's 15 million stake which was held by the Leningrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union which Arkady Krutikhin (Russian: Аркадий Крутихин) headed.[9] All of the funds for the Russian Video stake came from the Leningrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party, too.[9] Others with stakes were Rus (Russian: Акционерное страховое общество (АСК) "Русь"),[9] an insurance company founded by Aleksey Aleksandrov (Russian: Алексей Иванович Александров) and headed by Vladislav Reznik from 1990 to 1995,[11][12] and Digital Transfer, a Soviet-Belgian company.[13] Rossiya Bank's total capital at registration was 31 million rubles.[13]
- The Zürich based law firm Dietrich, Baumgartner & Partners is the main law firm used by the controlling interests at Bank Rossiya. For example, to establish two new Swiss bank accounts at Gazprombank Switzerland in Zürich for the beneficial owner Sergei Roldugin, Vladimir Khotimsky, who is an investment manager at Rossiya Bank, emailed the Zürich law office of Andres Baumgartner, who is an American and is fluent in German, French, English and Russian, with instructions to "pass on Khotimsky’s orders—to enact loans or make share deals—to Mossack Fonseca’s branch office in the same town," and "The Panamanian firm then used its own network of offices in far-flung jurisdictions to operate anonymous shell companies, in the [British Virgin Islands], Panama itself, or Belize."[15][16][17][18][19]
- The president of the Saint Petersburg Association of Joint Ventures was Gennady Volodchenko (Russian: Геннадий Володченко) and its CEO of TSA was Vladimir Kozhin (Russian: Владимир Кожин) and Vladimir Putin oversaw its interests from his city office. In 1993, Vitaly Savelyev (Russian: Виталий Савельев) became the advisor to the board of Rossiya Bank.
- Upon Sobchak's arrival in Los Angeles, Mark Neuman, Leon Weinstein, and Gulnara Afanasyeva met Sobchak.[23]
- The Austrian Russian Joint Venture JV Neva Chance formed the St. Petersburg casino Neva Chance which was registered in May 1992 and established in 1993.[29] Its co-owners were Novomatic with nearly all its shares and "Neva-Chance" (AOZT "Casino") which had the same address as Vladimir Putin's Committee for External Relations and according to law was supposed to own a share in every St Petersburg casino.[29] The telephone number for "Neva-Chance", JV Casino Neva, and Putin's Committee for External Relations was exactly the same, too.[29] Neva Chance changed its name several times eventually becoming in 1997 the Admiral-Club, however its taxpayer identification number and its registration location at Antonenko Street, 6, had never changed.[29] Through the Swedish Russian Joint Venture JV Petrodin, proceeds from this casino or chorny mal, which Viktor Zolotov acquired for Vladimir Putin, were used as capital to establish Bank Rossiya.[29][30][31][32] Several prestigiously located casinos around St Petersburg are called Admiral.[29]
- From 1990-1, Joseph Serio, an American, worked with the Soviet Interior Ministry as an American liaison.[43]
- Other estimates show that the KGB had removed $50 billion in 1992 real dollars.[40]
- Vladimir Putin was in charge of the Committee for Foreign Liaison, (Russian: комитет внешних связей), the Committee for Foreign Economic Relations, or the Committee for External Relations during this period. Later, he was the advisor to Anatoly Sobchak until June 1991 while Sobchak headed the Leningrad City Council from May 1990 to June 1991. After Sobchak became the Mayor of Saint Petersburg, Putin became Sobchak's first deputy and later Sobchak's first deputy mayor. By 1990, Sobchak was reviled by the KGB for his uncovering of numerous irregularities and illegal actions by the KGB and former KGB officials.[44]
- The Leningrad Association of Joint Ventures was formed in 1990 and had two joint ventures with Germany, one with the United States, and one with Finland (FILCO).[45]
- KOLO removed part of the assets of six defense and space complex firms.[41]
- In 2013, this was equal to one billion United States dollars.[52]
- Mikhail Alekseevich Klishin (Russian: Михаил Алексеевич Клишин) (b. October 9, 1954) graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute (Russian: Ленинградский политехнический институт) with a degree in metallurgical engineering in 1980 and from the International Banking Institute (Russian: Международный банковский институт) in St. Petersburg in 1998. From 1980-1992, he was KGB in the management of the Leningrad Oblast, Soviet Union. From 1992-1995, he was Deputy General Director of Avanburg Joint Venture (JV) (Russian: СП “Аванбург”) which was established 18 November 1991 and liquidated 22 January 2007.[70][71] From 1995 to 1997, he headed the Credit Department of the Rossiya Bank. In 1997-1998, he headed the credit department of the St. Petersburg branch of Tokobank (Russian: Токобанк). In 1998, he was appointed Deputy General Director of Rossiya Bank and, in 1999, he became First Deputy General Director of Rossiya Bank.[7][8]
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