Sergei and Dmitry Khotimsky are putting on a good face for investors, while Sovcombank is having problems with the liquidity of its assets, and its clients do not know how to get out of credit “slavery”.
Sovcombank, owned by brothers Sergei and Dmitry Khotimsky, has completed the placement of subordinated bonds that could be purchased with proceeds from the sale of outstanding Eurobonds. In this way, the banker brothers allegedly tried to protect investors who could get into trouble due to interaction with the sanctioned structure.
Meanwhile, in Sovcombank itself, everything is not thankful to God. Not the most comforting reports of banking analysts are superimposed by a whole series of scandals related to the collection of debts under credit and mortgage agreements of the bank. Judging by the rumors on the Internet, it could even come to victims among the Khotimsk clients “happy” with loans.
What is happening with the bank and why it is getting a bad reputation – in the material of The Moscow Post correspondent.
Liquidity suffers, profits disappear
The year 2022 coming to an end turned out to be difficult for the entire Russian banking system, including for such a large bank as Sovcombank. In the past, they have repeatedly tried to attribute the model of a “financial pyramid” to him, when successive takeovers of rehabilitated banks pumped up the structure with assets, but at the same time profits disappeared somewhere.
Most of the financial information about the bank is in the public domain , of course, is missing. But a number of indicators can still be found in the public domain. And if you analyze them, it turns out that even before the start of the SVO and a new round of sanctions, something was wrong at Sovcombank.
According to the banking analytics website, as of January 1, 2022, in retrospect for only one month, the structure of liabilities shows that the bank's direct income-generating assets decreased by 12.8%, or by 8 billion rubles in absolute terms. Sources of own funds for the same period decreased by 841 million rubles. =”1″ light””=”1″ title=”Mortgage on ” type=”image/jpeg” alt=”Mortgage on ” />
Photo: https://analizbankov.ru/bank.php?BankId=sovkombank-963&BankMenu=struktura_balansa
For the same period – an extremely negative situation with indicators of liquidity assessment. Almost all indicators (the level of stability of resources, the ratio of borrowed and own funds, the ratio of highly liquid assets and borrowed funds) and others are in the “red” zone.
Photo: https://analizbankov.ru/bank.php?BankId=sovkombank-963&BankMenu=likvidnost
And even those indicators that were in the “green” zone – the indicator of dependence on the interbank market and the indicator of non-bank loans, according to analysts, with a generally satisfactory condition, have a negative trend. The same applies to the ratio of highly liquid assets to borrowed funds.
Photo: https://analizbankov.ru/bank.php?BankId=sovkombank-963&BankMenu=likvidnost
This may indicate a decrease in the quality of the bank's assets, or even their reduction. The Khotimskys are investing in unprofitable structures, but at the same time they pretend that everything is going well?
Perhaps this is only a short period. But no one will believe that in the hardest year for Russian banks in 2022, the Khotimskys' business went uphill. Moreover, if we take a wider period – from September 2021 to February 2022, it turns out that during this period the bank lost 40 billion rubles of profit while increasing assets. If in September 2021 he received 39 billion rubles “net”, then in January there was already a net loss of 674 million rubles.
Photo: https://www.banki.ru/banks/ratings/?BANK_ID=76620&IS_SHOW_GROUP=0&IS_SHOW_LIABILITIES =0&date1=2022-02-01&date2=2021-09-01
Similar oddities – the disappearance of profits with the growth of assets (presumably at the expense of rehabilitated banks) have occurred before. The money could flow into the offshore “Sovko Capital Partners” from Luxembourg, to which the Khotimsky bank was tied. And only in September, “Sovko” registered in Kaliningrad (without this, their assets could have been completely frozen by Western “sanctioners”).
It is obvious that the Khotimskys are in dire need of money. Indeed, in addition to the placement of subordinated bonds, they have recently made a whole series of ordinary bond issues.
Back at the end of May, on May 25, 2020, Sovcombank placed exchange-traded bonds in the amount of 5 billion rubles for three years. The same thing happened in April, when the bank placed bonds for 12 billion rubles for a period of 10 years. Prior to this, another large placement – for 25 billion rubles, took place in October 2019.
Hunting for borrowers
And what are the Khotimsky brothers doing against the backdrop of this sad news for themselves and their investors? For a long time, the market has been full of rumors that they allegedly use murky lending schemes for vulnerable groups of citizens, as a result of which they find themselves either without a livelihood, or even without a roof over their heads.
Earlier, The Moscow Post was contacted by woman Elena, widow of the liquidator of the Chernobyl accident. Her husband died, leaving debts that she tried to cope with with the help of loan brokers. And through one of them, she signed an agreement with Sovcombank for a new loan of 3 million rubles.
At the same time, even before receiving the funds, the broker pulled 300 thousand rubles from her for services. And Sovcombank forced Elena's daughter to leave the apartment to confirm the loan. Even then, she suspected something was wrong.
And after her two-room apartment in Moscow was rated as “odnushka”, and only 9.5 million rubles, which is minuscule for the capital. To the question – why and on what basis the apartment was valued at such a small amount, the answer was a counter question: “Do you want to receive money?”
Further, bank employees gave Elena a form to sign, where she is listed as an employee of one of the large development companies, with a salary of 150 thousand rubles. And again, if they refused to do so, they threatened not to give out the money, the woman said. Today, Elena is afraid that her apartment will simply be taken away.
But this case, of which there may be hundreds and thousands, is not yet extreme. According to the authors of the FSB Boutique telegram channel, allegedly in the situation with Sovcombank loans, the borrower allegedly even voluntarily passed away.
The same authors claim that the Telegram channel allegedly operates in the interests of Sovcombank and the bank ABK Invest, and they turn the schemes together. Allegedly, in relation to people who have delays in payments, methods are used that would fit to be used by organized criminal groups in the 90s of the last century. It is as if pensioners and even single mothers who have fallen into bondage are beaten, their doors are kicked down, and locks are broken open. Another wildness is to pour tar on the door to the debtor's apartment.
It sounds, frankly, completely unintelligible, and requires confirmation from law enforcement agencies. If so, where are the criminal cases, where is the official information?
It is alleged that people who could have suffered from the actions of Sovcombank repeatedly submitted collective applications to the Moscow City Prosecutor's Office, to the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation. But nothing changes in the situation. But, apparently, the problems of ordinary citizens of our law enforcement officers, especially in Moscow, are not very worried when at the “other end of the wire” is one of the largest, backbone banks in the country.
In addition, a video is circulating on the Web in which, allegedly, a person associated with Sovcombank (supposedly he himself is from ABK Invest, but has a power of attorney from Sovcombank) comes to “collect debts” in the worst traditions of Russian collectors – he cuts off debtors wires. And he promises that he will come every day.
Video: YouTube channel “Peace to Us”
To put it mildly, neither Sovcombank nor its beneficiaries, Dmitry and Sergey Khotimsky, paint any of this. But behind them are a lot of other scandals. What is worth only the fate of the banks that were under their wing at the suggestion of the same Central Bank and Elvira Nabiullina. Almost all of them have sunk into oblivion – and their assets could have ended up there.
And how bad are the Khotimskys in reality with finances and morality, if they can use such methods? Draw your own conclusions.
