B&N Group plans to turn B&N Bank public after its merger with MDM Bank is wrapped up, B&N Bank board chairman, MDM Bank board member and management board chairman Mikail Shishkhanov told journalists, a Banki.ru special correspondent reported.
"Our merged financial institution should be public and should be in the market, but this will take a year or a year and a half. Most likely this will be carried out in two years. We have the same plans about our oil company. Further development needs higher capital and special corporate culture," he said.
According to Shishkhanov, an initial public offering would not depend on the overall economic environment. "Sometimes it is better to break onto the market when it looks passive because you can find yourself standing in a long line when the market is brisk," he noted.
The media previously wired that MDM Bank and B&N Bank are planned to merge by year-end 2016. B&N Bank co-owners Mikail Shishkhanov and Mikhail Gutseriev signed in June 2015 an agreement to buy a controlling interest (58.33%) in MDM Bank from Sergei Popov. At the end of summer Mikail Shishkhanov claimed that B&N Bank shareholders intend to gain full control over MDM Bank by acquiring stakes from the bank's remaining shareholders.
Of late leasing firm Europlan, which entered B&N Group this September, staged an IPO. Investors bought 25% minus 1 share of the company at the upper end of the IPO band, and its free float came to Rub 3.27 bln. Trading in Europlan shares on the Moscow Exchange kicked off on Friday, December 11.