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Weekly Lists
February 2, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 27
bne:Banker
Russia's finance ministry to recapitalise "defence bank" PSB
London court opens door for creditors to sue Azerbaijani IBA
Russia's finance ministry is seeking to recapitalise Promsvyaz- bank (PSB) using funds it recovers from the central bank rescue of two other banks, Financial Corporation Otkritie and Binbank (aka B&N bank), Reuters said on January 31 citing unnamed sources.
PSB was the latest garden-ring bank to be nationalised by the Cen- tral Bank of Russia (CBR), and will now be converted into Russia’s "defence bank" by the authorities, designated to service the mili- tary-industrial complex and shield Russia's RUB23 trillion arma- ment program from sanctions.
Now the bank will be reportedly recapitalised and transferred to government ownership by April with previous estimates by the CBR putting the recapitalisation needs at RUB200bn ($3.6bn).
A London court sided with Franklin Templeton and Russia's Sberbank in a January 25 ruling concerning Azerbaijan's International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA), according to Reuters.
The court upheld the plaintiffs' request to have a credit dispute
with Azerbaijan's largest lender judged under English law. In May 2017, IBA asked to have $3.3bn worth of its international obligations restructured.
A court motion preventing creditors from pursuing legal action against it for the duration of the restructuring process expired on January 18.
Franklin Templeton and Sberbank, which have lent IBA $500mn and $20mn respectively, did not agree with the terms of a restructuring plan made public to creditors in July, but have had no legal recourse in the ensuing months.
The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation to assess whether new measures proposed by the Slovenian authorities regarding the restructuring of the country’s largest lender Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB) sufficiently compensate for delaying the bank's sale beyond the end of 2017, the European Commission (EC) announced on January 26.
Slovenia had committed to sell 75% of the bank in a restructuring plan that served as a basis for the European Commission's approval of state aid to the bank in the 2013 bailout by 2017, but scrapped a planned IPO last June amid a dispute over the pricing of the offer and an ongoing lawsuit over Yugoslav-era deposits in Croatia.
EU opens in-depth investigation into Slovenia’s privatisation proposal for NLB