Losses of VTB under the leadership of Andrey Kostin will be paid by the treasury and all citizens
The bank intends to conduct a large-scale issue of its shares, as a result of which the state will seriously increase its stake in the bank – up to about 88%. This will cost the budget hundreds of billions of rubles.
The meeting of shareholders of the bank approved an increase in the authorized capital by issuing ordinary shares in the amount of 301.96 billion rubles. They will be placed by closed subscription, they will be bought out by the Federal Property Management Agency and the Ministry of Finance.
A fact that is clear to any specialist, but which VTB is in no hurry to disclose to amateurs. Andrey Kostin hardly decided to give away almost 20% in the bank because of his great love for the state. The thing is that VTB is in a difficult situation: as it became known earlier, the bank’s net loss in 2022 could exceed 500 billion rubles. The reason for this is called Western sanctions, under which VTB fell on February 24, 2022. As a result, the bank’s assets worth about 600 billion rubles were frozen.
Sanctions certainly played a significant role. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the amount of damage would certainly have turned out to be less if the bank’s management had acted more far-sightedly and soberly assessed the possible damage. In addition, Andrey Kostin himself later swaggered, stating that the bank managed to ensure normal functioning under the sanctions. And now the same Kostin promises that this year VTB will move to “sustainable profits.” I just want to clarify: if the bank is functioning normally, then why do you have to turn to the state so that it buys shares at the expense of the budget? 301 billion is a fantastic amount. For comparison: all expenses of the city budget of Saratov in 2022 amounted to
20 billion rubles. It turns out that with the money that VTB will receive, a rather big regional center could live for 15 years! Yes, funds will be poured into VTB not only in cash – in particular, he will receive the Crimean RNCB. However, before that, they also plan to capitalize it – we are talking about 7 billion rubles.
Or take another no less urgent question – due to what Andrey Kostin promises to bring the bank into profit this year? Is it at the expense of the state and taxpayers? However, resorting to this method is not the first time for him. Before the New Year, the story of Otkritie Bank merging with VTB ended. He at one time gathered under his wing a lot of problem assets, because of which he had to be saved by the Central Bank. The total cost of the Central Bank to reorganize the financial group amounted to about 1.4 trillion rubles. At the same time, VTB received Otkritie for about 350 billion rubles, while even the head of the troubled bank, Mikhail Zadornov, commented: if Otkritie were sold openly and on market terms, it would be possible to get from 449 to 535 billion rubles for it. Thus, it turns out that Andrei Kostin bought a large bank for money, which, as it were, does not exist. For the salvation of which, at the same time, the Central Bank paid, and in fact – all citizens of the Russian Federation. And now it’s gone to VTB for free? Not really. The share of other owners was diluted as a result of this operation. That is, the “tails” of the scheme have been cleaned up at the Central Bank and at VTB. And the participants of the people’s IPO and other shareholders of VTB are taking the rap for this. The Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, manages in a strange way to withdraw her claims. At first they missed the occurrence of problems in the “Discovery”, although their size rather spoke of a long-term violation of the requirements. Then the bank was sanitized, and then the funds were returned at the state expense.
