After adherence of Uniastrum Bank to Vostochniy Bank (Vostochniy Express Bank) the brand of the first one will cease to exist on a plan of the owners and the top management of two credit organizations. Two sources that are close to the stockholders of the bank told Banki.ru about it adding that, however, the decision on the fortune of the two brands hasn't been made yet. The analysts consider this option the most tenable.
Uniastrum Bank refused to give any comments, Vostochniy Express underlined that before announcing the plans on joining of Uniastrum Bank it is necessary to obtain the solution of the Federal Antimonopoly Service: the intercession for the prior consent to the joining was received only the 1st of July. The waiting period may be up to 30 days.
Ekaterina Leonenkova, the head of the tax practice of the law group «Yakovlev and partners», points that, according to law, during reorganization of a legal entity by joining of another legal entity to it the rights and responsibilities of the affiliate entity are transferred to the first one. That is to say, after the affiliation of Uniastrum to Vostochniy the first one will get all the liabilities of the first one on its balance sheet. It is 96.8 billion rubles as of the 1st of June.
Vostochniy Express is larger than Uniastrum as for assets (200.2 billion rubles), and for the quantity of structural units (more than 470). On the opinion of Ruslan Korshunov, the Senior analyst for bank ratings of RAEX («Expert of RA»), that is the reason why consolidation of the banks on the basis of Vostochniy brand is more logical. According to the credit rating agency expert, the synergistic effect of the merger of banks may positively affect their competitive advantages in regions and help to reach break-even during the economic recovery. The expert also points that at the present moment key assets of banks are characterized by low quality. Korshunov adds that, in general, the project on merger of banks that have problems today against the backdrop of continuing worsening of asset quality deterioration is a serious challenge, the success of the project is not guaranteed.
According to him, significant financial investments that will completely fall on the owners of the banks will be required for successful integration. First of all, it could concern Artem Avetisyan, the main owner of Uniastrum Bank, which controls the credit institution through the Cypriot offshore BOC Russia (Holdings) Limited. He can get more than 40 % of shares in the capital of Vostochniy Express after the accession. After the June additional emission the share of Avetisyan's stocks in the authorized capital of Vostochniy is 24.9 %.
According to another source of Banki.ru close to the two credit organizations, there is also the second intercession in the Federal Antimonopoly Service. It clarified that the second application- the one for approval of merger already of Vostochniy to Uniastrum Bank- was sent to the antimonopoly service after the first one already. It was done because the owners of the credit organizations haven't entirely agreed on the configuration of the united banking structure.
