RBC DAILY. Sergey Yunin, a major shareholder of First Republic Bank, who held his equity stake for 13 years decided to pull out of banking business.
As RBC daily notes, together with his relatives Sergey Yunin bought FRB in 1998, at that the time the bank operated as Venture Joint Stock Bank. In a decade the bank attracted a portfolio, investment fund Renfin II, under management of Renaissance Investment Management. Yunin sold 20% of FRB to the fund, which cut his equity position to 24.77%. Sergey Yunin’s partners, Sergey Cheredov, Olga Yurchenko and Igor Golik, held 19.46%, 9.24% and 6.99% of the bank’s shares, respectively.
“I’ve grown business that became interesting even to my clients. Initially, I planned to draw a new shareholder no earlier than 2012, but I managed to execute a transaction even earlier," Yunin told RBC daily. The bank’s new shareholders are entrepreneur Vladimir Bogolyubsky, and also former director of the Moscow office of investment bank UBS and now Du Lac Capital partner Swiss citizen Ancelm Schmucki and American Yury Levitas who now hold around 20% each.
“My companies have long been clients of FRB, and I know Sergey Yunin for a long time. He made us an offer to buy the bank and we gave consent,“ said Vladimir Bogolyubsky in an interview with RBC daily. “Compared to other banks FRB overcame the crisis and continued expansion, and this attracted us,” he added. According to Bogolyubsky, Schmucki and Levitas are his old business partners. Despite the bank’s sale by Sergey Yunin, he will remain a board member for around six months until he hands over the administration to the new shareholders, Bogolyubsky said emphasizing he hasn’t yet held any negotiations with Renfin over the purchase of its stake.
The price Bogolyubsky and his partners paid for FRB shares was not disclosed. According to the bank’s data, as of August 1, 2011 the bank’s capital stood at Rub 2.2 bln. According to consultancy NEO Center, over the past 12 months banks have been bought and sold at a capital ratio of 1.5 to 1.7. So, in the aggregate the new shareholders could have paid Rub 1.98 bln to Rub 2.22 bln for a 60% interest in FRB. Sergey Yunin could receive Rub 800—900 mln for his equity stake.
