Usmanov, Skoch no longer shareholders of Round Bank
MOSCOW. March 21 (Interfax) - Round Bank, the beneficiaries of which were USM Holdings shareholders Alisher Usmanov and Vladimir Skoch, is now wholly owned by Irina Lupicheva, the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (USRLE) showed.
The change of ownership took place on March 18, prior to which Round Bank was owned by OOO ASK Renessans, which in turn was 49% and 30% owned by Usmanov and Skoch through Round East Holdings Ltd and USM Investments Ltd.
Lupicheva has been managing director and head of control and risks at USM Management LLC since 2012, prior to which she held management positions at companies that subsequently became part of USM Holdings, overseeing finance, internal audit and securities operations.
The United States, European Union and UK imposed sanctions against Usmanov in March that included freezing his assets in these countries. A number of countries also imposed restrictions against Vladimir Skoch, the son of Usmanov's long-time business partner Andrei Skoch. Usmanov and Andrei Skoch were also included in the U.S. list of 50 Russians on which sanctions control is a priority.
USM Holdings' main assets are iron ore producer Metalloinvest; mobile provider MegaFon ; Udokan Copper, which is building a mine and processing plant at the Udokan copper deposit; and Akkermann Cement, one of Russia's largest cement producers.
Usmanov is USM's largest shareholder with 49%. The other shareholders are Vladimir and Varvara Skoch, Farhad Moshiri and Ivan Streshinsky.
Round Bank was only Russia's 157th largest bank by assets at the end of 2021, with 13.4 billion rubles, according to the Interfax-100 ranking of the country's leading lenders. The bank was given a major role in the payment joint venture announced in 2019 between USM, MegaFon, VK , the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Ant Group, a subsidiary of China's Alibaba . However, last fall, not long before the scheduled closure of the deal, VK reported in its financial statement that the creation of the venture in its initial configuration was unlikely, but it did not say why.
