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Content: 2 Top Stories bne:Newspaper 5 The Regions This Week 9 Chart 10 Central Europe 13 Southeast Europe 16 Eastern Europe 18 Eurasia Follow us on twitter.com/bneintellinews 22 Opinion 24 Lists24 Lists September 22, 2017 www.intellinews.com Russia nationalises stricken Binbank bne IntelliNews The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has rescued made a similar loan to Otkritie in August, which the stricken Binbank (also known as B&N Bank), it later transpired ran into the hundreds of billions marking the country’s second effective nationali- of rubles. sation in three weeks. All of the lenders that are part of BIN Group, The CBR has given the bank an unsecured loan, but has not disclosed the amount. The regulator See page 2 Directors resign from board of Ukraine's gas monopoly over derailed reforms Sergei Kuznetsov in Kyiv The two surviving independent members of The other independent directors have all al- the supervisory board of Ukraine's gas mo- ready quit, raising concerns by donors over nopoly Naftogaz – Paul Warwick and Mar- the government’s commitment to cleaning up cus Richards – quit on September 19, citing corruption in big state-owned enterprises. "the government’s lack of commitment to duly implement the corporate governance re- form", the company said in a statement. See page 3 Top Stories September 22, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 2 Russia nationalises According to Shishkhanov, who has a strong repu- tation as a good banker, the main reason for Bin- stricken Binbank bank's difficulties were toxic assets it inherited from its CBR-sponsored rescue of MDM Bank, formerly one of Russia’s best commercial banks, which BIN acquired in late 2016. including Rostbank, Binbank Digital and Uralpri- vatbank, will continue operation in a normal mode, "I didn't expect MDM Bank's assets to be so bad," CBR said, without specifying the size of the bailout Shishkhanov said, adding that he expects to retain package it will have to extend to the lender. a 25% share in the lender, while the remaining 75% will be nationalised. The terms of cleaning up are apparently very simi- lar to those for Otkritie financial group, as there Otkritie also ran into trouble from a failed rescue: will be no credit moratorium or bail-in. it received funds from the CBR to rescue Trust Bank, but botched the job and only increased its The bank is the second to be included in the new problems, according to the CBR. Banking Sector Consolidation Fund (BSCF) that was set up earlier this year and also used to res- Rostbank also added to BIN’s woes. It needed cue Otkritie. Apparently the fund was established over RUB600bn, entirely supplied by BIN, to shore for the express purpose of dealing with commer- up its capital, which was negative RUB70bn under cial banks that get into trouble but are too large to its IFRS accounts at the end of the first half of this bail out. year, versus BIN’s entire capital of RUB83bn over the same period, Vedomosti reported. Fitch esti- The advantage of the fund is it allows the CBR to mates that the combined capital of the two banks take direct control of a troubled bank and using was a very thin RUB13bn. And the increasingly its reputation as the backer, keep the troubled prudent CBR regulations, especially on strategi- bank’s doors open and so reducing the cost of the cally important banks, have been eating into all rescue. Previously the CBR would simply pull a banks’ capital. The hidden bad loans in MDM, for bank’s licenses and then use the Deposit Insur- example, required more provisions than expected ance Agency (DIA) to reimburse depositors – and and so ate into capital. an extremely expensive way of cleaning up the sector. Shishkhanov also said that BIN "fell hostage" to rumours spread in messengers and social media The CBR has belatedly admitted it has lent Ot- against the backdrop of cleaning up Otkritie. kritie RUB1.1 trillion ($19bn), which is over 1% of The CBR report on banks for August shows that GDP on its own and is only slightly less than the BIN was the hardest hit by the spill over fears estimated RUB1.3 trillion federal budget deficit from the Otkritie take over. for this year. "According to monthly local GAAP data, Bin- Binbank owner Mikhail Shishkhanov was quoted bank appeared the most affected name among by Vedomosti as saying that the cleaning up of the private majors amid the liquidity stress at Otkritie lender may take between three and eight months, FC. Particularly, the bank saw RUB13bn ($225mn) during which Binbank will be operating in a nor- of net customer deposit outflows (including mal mode. RUB22bn related to retail and RUB13bn to state clients, partially substituted by new non-state cor- "This is difficult, hard work, and I will put all effort porate accounts of RUB22bn) and about RUB25bn into it, working 24 hours a day," he said. of lost interbank funding, which was met with a Top Stories September 22, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 3 sale of liquid debt securities (about RUB80bn)," At the same time falling interest rates – the CBR Raiffeisen bank said in a note. cut rates again to 8.5% in September – have squeezed net interest margins, which is a major The CBR said on August 20 that outflows source of profits for Russia’s banks. And the CBR from Binbank have continued in September, has increased the provisions banks have to put but without giving any details. aside for non-performing loans (NLPs) removing yet more capital that banks could use to The so-called Garden Ring banks, the leading com- earn profits. mercial banks that have been included on the CBR’s “strategically important banks,” have all come un- However, analysts are not expecting BIN’s prob- der increased pressure since the spring as the CBR lems to lead to a banking crisis as the rest of the tightened its supervision of the sector. Problems first sector is doing well and earned more profits in the surfaced in June when Russia’s new domestic rat- first eight months of this year than in all of 2016. ings agency Analytical Credit Rating Agency (ACRA) downgraded Otkritie to BBB, which precludes it from The CBR is now assessing Binbank’s problems holding state money like pension funds. and says it will give more details as it gets them. That lead to an outflow of capital from Otkritie: the “Now we are in an active negotiating stage with bank lost RUB433bn (€6.2bn), or 26% of its client the Bank of Russia. Our goal - with the support of deposits, in June–July, ACRA said. Worries spilled the Central Bank through the Fund for the Con- over to the other Garden Ring banks as big state solidation of the Banking Sector – is to conduct an enterprises started moving their cash to the safer effective financial recovery of Binbank and Rost- state bank coffers. Sberbank has been a big winner bank,” Shishkhanov said. here and has large surpluses of liquidity now. Directors resign from ing increasingly evident and, unfortunately, the norm. Essentially, no material change has oc- board of Ukraine's gas curred over the last five months despite the assurances we received to the contrary." monopoly over derailed In April, the four independent board mem- reforms bers – Paul Warwick, Markus Richards, Charles Proctor and Yulia Kovaliv – sent a letter to the According to a letter signed by Warwick and Rich- Ukrainian government indicating their con- ards, they made it "very clear" to the Ukrainian cerns over the situation in the company. Without government in April that their continuing involve- material progress it would be "inappropriate ment in this critical reform project was contingent and untenable" for them to continue as su- on material progress on corporate governance. pervisory members, they said in the letter. "Despite assurances from senior politicians, Specifically, the independent board members deadlines have passed and commitments demand the "resolution of issues" related to have not been delivered with an environment the electronic declarations system of Ukrain- of government control, not envisaged in the ian officials. According to recent amendments to corporate governance action plan," the letter Ukrainian legislation, financial disclosure obliga- reads. "Increasing political meddling becom- tions have been extended to existing and potential Top Stories September 22, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 4 members of supervisory boards of state-owned head of Naftogaz’s supervisory board Yulia Ko- companies. "It is impossible for foreigners to valiv, who represented the state of Ukraine. complete necessary actions with such inac- tion leading to potential criminal claims against Among the major Naftogaz and EBRD demands us," the independent board members wrote. to the Ukrainian government, was an approval of the company’s financial plan for 2017 and The European Bank for Reconstruction and De- performance indicators for Naftogaz's supervi- velopment (EBRD), Naftogaz's main international sory board. The monopoly's financial plan pre- partner and donor, has warned Ukraine’s leader- pared according to international standards was ship that the possible collapse of the country’s agreed by the company’s board and submitted energy sector reform could shatter international to the Ukrainian cabinet for approval in April. confidence in the current government in Kyiv. According to Ukrainian media, the Ukrain- Specifically, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, the president ian government greenlighted the draft finan- of the EBRD, warned the Ukrainian leadership of cial plan for Naftogaz in July. However, a Kyiv negative effects from the threatened resignation source with knowledge of the matter told bne of the independent board members of Naftogaz.