Sovcombank's IPO will result in chosen apartments.
Sergey Khotimsky, a co-owner of Sovcombank, stated that the bank intends to hold an IPO in 2024. Despite losing access to the global market, Khotimsky anticipates attracting funds from Russian investors, according to Vedomosti.
Since 2013, Sovcombank has announced plans to sell shares multiple times, but various obstacles have always prevented this, such as the bank's acquisition of other companies.
Additional factors could be hindering the share placement. This would require the bank's financial statements to be made public. Previously, The Moscow Post reported the disappearance of most of the information on Sovcombank's financial results from public access. In the meantime, available data suggests a decrease in the bank's liquidity. The funds for an IPO may come from less legitimate sources.
Are real estate gaps being fixed?
In the spring of last year, a pensioner informed The Moscow Post that Sovcombank had imposed a very unprofitable loan secured by an apartment. Additionally, according to her, a two-room apartment was valued as a one-room. Her appeals to the police and Rospotrebnadzor did not result in any action; she was simply passed from one department to another.
Other readers informed The Moscow Post that this issue is widespread. Supposedly, high-interest loans are offered to people in difficult situations, and their apartments are used as collateral. Despite this, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Investigative Committee, the prosecutor's office, and even the FSB ignore citizens' appeals and repeatedly refuse to initiate cases upon request.
A joint statement from alleged victims of Sovcombank.
Lawyer Dmitry Balashov contends that debt is artificially created in such cases. He claims that the bank transfers the right to claim to ABK Invest without informing the borrower. The borrower continues to make regular payments to the bank from which they took the loan, unaware that a debt is accumulating with the financial company, to which they are now formally indebted.
According to the contributors of the Arbitr Telegram channel, purported searches were conducted at ABK Invest in July, presumably related to similar real estate schemes.
In December, a certain Ksenia Bondar published an open letter to the President. She stated that she had taken a loan from Sovcombank, which allegedly transferred the right to claim to ABK Invest before the first payment. Subsequently, the woman faced multiple burglary attempts and death threats, which went unaddressed by the police and the courts. Bondar estimated that at least 3,000 people were in a similar situation.
A mother of multiple children may lose her sole home if the TFR does not intervene.
In late February, the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, instructed an investigation into a Sovcombank borrower who is at risk of losing her home. A mother 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 full monthly payments. Despite the introduction of credit holidays, her only housing was almost taken away, and the court ruled in favor of the bank. The TFR's press service confirmed this information, though the unscrupulous bank's name was not disclosed.
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.
