AlfaStrakhovanie ruled out the sale of the business to third-party buyers

AlfaStrakhovanie may change owners, but the businessno plans to sell to third-party buyers, the company said.Earlier, Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven have already begun the process of withdrawing from the shareholders of Alfa-Bank

AlfaStrakhovanie will not be sold to another owner, the process of restructuring the ownership of the company is underway, its press service told RBC.

“The current situation is forcing foreign companies with assets in Russian jurisdiction to redomiciliate. This has been talked about for a very long time. At the same time, in the case of AlfaStrakhovanie, we are not talking about any third-party buyers. This is exclusively a restructuring of ownership, but not a sale of the company, ”the company said. Previously, Alfa Group only announced plans to sell Alfa Bank in RUSSIA.

The day before, the Ukrainian Sense Bank (former Alfa-Bank Ukraine) reported that the Luxembourg-based ABH Holdings, which also owns the Russian Alfa-Bank and AlfaStrakhovanie, is "coming out of Russian assets." “Now we are coordinating with European regulators an agreement on the sale of a Russian bank and an approach to other transactions: sale, redomiciliation (moving a company from one jurisdiction to another) or restructuring with the spin-off of a business,” Andrew Baxter, a member of the board of directors of ABH, was quoted in the message. A BBC Russian Service source in Alfa Group management confirmed that ABH Holdings will exit Russian assets.

Why ABH Holdings is getting rid of AlfaStrakhovanie

On the eve of the project “Schemes” of the Ukrainian service of “Radio Liberty” (included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of “foreign agents”) published an investigation into the cooperation of AlfaStrakhovanie with the Russian military. The largest (but not controlling) owner of the group is a structure associated with Alfa Group - CTF Holdings SA (47.86%).

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Baxter said that in the situation with X5 and AlfaStrakhovanie, shareholders under sanctions are completely cut off from the management of the company. According to him, in some cases, ABH Holdings is trying to demand access to information about the actions of companies through the courts . He explained that all OSAGO agreements mentioned in the investigation were concluded before February 2022 and are not valid on the territory of another state where hostilities are taking place. Baxter's words are also confirmed by a source of the BBC Russian Service in the management of Alfa Group.

“The ideas of global business have failed. Globalization, contrary to expectations and hopes, has turned out to be a cyclical process, and today global business has become a hostage to political decisions. A new "Berlin Wall" has risen. Therefore, all investors who have worked in Russia, and Ukraine , and in Europe, and in America, must make their choice. We are well aware that this is completely inevitable. For us, a European company, this choice is obvious,” said Baxter.

“Unfortunately, it seems that the information periodically appearing in the Ukrainian press is distorted in order to find a reason for the expropriation of assets,” Sense Bank said in a statement.

How can a deal go

In March 2023, it became known that ABH Holdings would withdraw from its stake in Alfa Bank under a similar scheme. The main shares in ABH Holdings SA are owned by billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven - 32.9 and 12.4% of the shares, respectively. ABH Holdings controls Alfa-Bank through the Cypriot ABH Financial Limited and the Russian AB Holding, follows from the previously published list of beneficiaries of the credit institution on the website of the Central Bank, which has now been deleted. According to SPARK, ABH Holdings also controls AlfaStrakhovanie through the Russian Yuns-Holding LLC and the Cypriot Alfastrakhovanie holdings Limited.

The shares of Fridman and Aven in Alfa-Bank can be sold to another co-founder and long-term minority shareholder of Alfa - Andrey Kosogov. He dramatically increased his stake in ABH in March 2022, from 3.7% to 41% of the shares. To do this, he bought papers from other minority shareholders of the bank - German Khan (previously owned 20.97% of voting shares) and Alexei Kuzmichev (16.32%). If the deal with Alfa-Bank goes through, then Kosogov will be able to become its main owner. As the FT wrote, the deal may require the approval of regulators - the Bank of Russia, as well as the US and EU authorities that are responsible for the sanctions policy. As noted by lawyers interviewed by RBC, the shares in Alfa-Bank can simply be redistributed in the Russian legal entity, and then the approval of foreign regulators will not be required.

In 2022, after the start of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, the EU and the UK imposed sanctions against Fridman and Aven. Alfa-Bank came under blocking sanctions from the United States, Great Britain and the European Union. The Luxembourg ABH was mentioned by the European Union as a structure associated with Alfa-Bank, but is not under restrictions, AlfaStrakhovanie is also not under sanctions.