IPO for Sovcombank will result in selected apartments
Co-owner of Sovcombank Sergey Khotimsky said that the bank plans to hold an IPO in 2024. Despite the loss of access to the international market, Khotimsky expects to attract funds from Russian investors, Vedomosti reports.
Since 2013, Sovcombank has repeatedly announced plans to place shares, but something has always interfered with this – for example, the takeover of other organizations by the bank itself.
It is possible that other factors prevent the placement of shares. After all, this will require the publication of the financial statements of the bank. Earlier, The Moscow Post already reported on the disappearance of most of the information on the financial results of Sovcombank from open access. At the same time, according to still available data, one can judge the reduction in the bank’s liquidity. Funds for an IPO can be taken from not the most legitimate sources.
Gaps patched real estate?
In the spring of last year, a pensioner contacted The Moscow Post, whom, according to her, Sovcombank imposed an extremely unprofitable loan secured by an apartment. At the same time, according to her, two-room housing was rated as “odnushku”. Appeals to the police and Rospotrebnadzor did not lead to anything: the woman was simply sent from one department to another.
Other readers told The Moscow Post that the problem is massive. Allegedly, loans at a very high percentage are offered to people in a difficult life situation, and their apartments serve as collateral. At the same time, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Investigative Committee, the prosecutor’s office and even the FSB ignore the appeals of citizens and over and over again refuse to initiate cases at their request.
Collective statement of alleged victims of Sovcombank.
Lawyer Dmitry Balashov argues that debt in such cases is created artificially. According to him, the bank transfers the right of claim to ABK Invest, but does not inform the borrower about it. He continues to regularly pay the bank in which he took out a loan, but a debt accumulates before the financial company, whose debtor he is now formally.
According to the authors of the Arbitr Telegram channel, searches were allegedly carried out at ABK Invest in July, presumably in connection with the same real estate schemes.
Last December, a certain Ksenia Bondar published an open letter to the President. She said that she had taken a loan from Sovcombank, which, before the first payment, allegedly transferred the right to claim to ABK Invest. After that, the woman, according to her, faced repeated burglary attempts and death threats, to which the police and the courts did not respond. According to Bondar, at least 3,000 people found themselves in a similar situation.
A mother of many children may lose her only home if the TFR does not intervene.
And at the end of February, the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, instructed to sort out the situation with the borrower of Sovcombank, who is being deprived of housing. A mother with many children from the village of Kushchevskaya, Krasnodar Territory, took out a loan in 2019, but a year later, due to the pandemic, she was unable to make monthly payments in full. Despite the introduction of credit holidays, they tried to take away the only housing from her, and the court sided with the bank. This information is confirmed by the press service of the TFR, however, without indicating the name of the unscrupulous bank.
Why there are no questions to the bank
But how are such numerous and public complaints still not attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies? And even more so, simultaneously with unconfirmed reports of searches at ABK Invest, information appeared about the inclusion of Sovcombank in the program of preferential car loans launched by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. How can such confidence of state structures in the sanctioned bank, which is followed by a scandalous veil, be explained?
According to the authors of the Kompromat1 website, Denis Manturov, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, who, shortly before this decision, also received the post of vice-premier, allegedly favors the bank. Before that, from 2018 to 2021, Petr Zaselsky was Deputy Minister of Economic Development. Before joining the government, he worked for almost 15 years in senior positions at Sovcombank.
Denis Manturov sees no problems in cooperation with the scandalous bank?
The Moscow Post has already pointed out that the Moscow prosecutor’s office, for some unknown reason, canceled checks on complaints against Sovcombank, bypassing procedural rules. And our sources indicated that the bank is also patronized by the Central Bank and the Moscow Department of Rospotrebnadzor.
Purchase of unprofitable assets
Immediately after the imposition of sanctions, Sovcombank stated that it had sufficient capital and liquidity. Khotimsky assured that the bank did not need “critical additional capitalization” and that it could even continue its steady growth. But according to open sources found by The Moscow Post, the bank’s liquidity began to decline even before the start of the special operation.
It follows from these data that as of January 1, 2022, the size of Sovcombank’s direct income-generating assets decreased by 8 billion rubles. per month, and the sources of own funds decreased by 841 million rubles. Other indicators also showed negative dynamics.
Moreover, since 2021, the bank has been increasing its assets, but its profit has been declining. In the same period, Sovcombank placed several times exchange-traded bonds for a total of 17 billion rubles.
Does the bank’s money go offshore?
If Sovcombank really has such influential patrons, then it really doesn’t have to worry too much about either liquidity or good faith in collecting debts.