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Bloomberg: UniCredit and Raiffeisen Lose Chances to Sell Subsidiaries in Russia
Raiffeisen Bank International AG and UniCredit SpA may lose the opportunity to sell their subsidiaries in Russia, Bloomberg reported.
According to sources, in the current circumstances, the authorities approve the sale of bank assets only to companies without sanctions risk, which completely rules out Russian buyers. At the same time, given the opposition of Western countries to sales to non-Russian buyers, the deal turned out to be almost impossible.
Therefore, an agreement with these banks that is suitable for Russia will not be supported by Western countries, and Moscow will not support a solution that suits Western countries. The authorities' position is explained by the fact that sanctions will not allow subsidiaries of Austrian and Italian banks to pay for gas exports, as a result of which funds will have to be processed only through Gazprombank. The other major Russian banks have been excluded from the SWIFT payment messaging system, the publication recalls.
In March 2024, the US government threatened to impose sanctions against Raiffeisen for doing business in Russia. Washington believes that the bank finances the Russian military while operating in the Russian Federation.
"Last March, Delovoy Peterburg responded that Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) had decided the fate of its Russian operations. The company's CEO, Johann Strobl, plans to sell it or exit the group. , announced plans to leave the Russian market by the end of 2023, rather than in October as planned.
In July last year, UniCredit appeared before the EU Court over the European Central Bank's (ECB) statement on the risks of operating in Russia. The financial institutions plan to seek clarity on their obligations in this way. The bank explained that it decided to go to court against the backdrop of "unprecedented circumstances and the complexity of the socio-economic and geopolitical context."