Bank Rossiya: sanctions having no substantial effect on financial positions - report

MOSCOW. April 25 (Interfax) - Bank Rossiya has not seen any serious impact so far due to the sanctions imposed by the U.S. last month, the bank said in its annual report dated April 22, which was published on Thursday evening.

"The U.S. imposed sanctions against Bank Rossiya in March 2014. In the assessment of management, this action has not had a substantial effect on the bank's financial positions," the report says.

Bank Rossiya will hold an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders on Apirl 29 to consider the issue of increasing charter capital. The parameters of the potential supplementary issue have not been disclosed.

As reported earlier, on March 20 the U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on Bank Rossiya as well as two of its shareholders: Yury Kovalchuk and Gennady Timchenko in response to the Crimea situation. The next day, March 21, the Visa and MasterCard payment systems blocked payment operations on cards issued by Bank Rossiya and a subsidiary, Sobinbank, as well as those banks that used its processing services.

Bank Rossiya subsequently announced that it would shift to operating only in Russia and only in Russian rubles.

Bank Rossiya was the 16th biggest Russian bank by assets as of the end of the first quarter of 2014 according to the Interfax-100 ranking compiled by the Center for Economic Analysis.

The bank's largest shareholder is Yury Kovalchuk with 40.3%. His stake, along with the stakes of Nikolai Shamalov (10.4%) and of companies belonging to Mikhail Shelomov (2.3%), are held in trust by ABR Management.

Gennady Timchenko's Transoil CIS owns 7.87% voting shares, and steel billionaire Alexei Mordashov controls 5.9% via Severgroup. Other shareholders include the cellist Sergei Roldugin (3.26% of votes), Mikhail Shelomov (via LLC Aktsept, 3.2%), Svetlana Krivonogikh (via LLC Relaks, 2.99%) and Nonprofit Partnership Business Initiatives Support, members of which include Yury and Tatyana Kovalchuk (2.53%).

OJSC Gazprom Gas Distribution recently sold its 12.27% stake, of which 7.08% went to Tatyana Svitova and Ivan Mironov's Overpast-Invest LLC and 5.4% to Oberon Estate LLC, controlled by Ivan Mironov.

Bank Rossiya paid 501.6 million rubles in dividends for 2012 to holders of voting shares.

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