Page 9 - bne IntelliNews monthly country report Russia February 2024

One of the senior officials also told The Bell that the divorce in Baring Vostok faced big problems, and some assets could even be threatened with nationalization.
The divorce at Baring Vostok was conceived as a division of assets between the fund's founder, Michael Calvey, and the Russian management, led by the fund's senior partner Elena Ivashentseva. Shares in Russian companies Baring Vostok, including Ozon, were to go to the new Russian holding Vostok Investments under its management. And the company Baring Private Equity, managed by Calvey, was supposed to receive Baring’s shares in the largest international asset - the Kazakh bank Kaspi (capitalization $19.2bn), as well as in the BlaBlaCar and Kolesa.kz services.
Details of the upcoming transaction were revealed by Ozon at the beginning of 2023, which sent a framework agreement between Baring Vostok partners to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It followed that the Russian part of the team, after the divorce, would receive the fund’s shares in 12 Russian-related companies - Ozon, Solopharm, Skyeng, Vkusville, Familia and others. It also said that Russian buyers would take on the debt obligations of Baring Vostok funds to banks in the amount of about $140mn, and three years after the deal is closed, they would pay foreign sellers led by Calvey another $150mn. “In essence, this is the monetary “tail” of a complex a multi-level transaction based on the exchange of assets and liabilities,” a Baring Vostok representative told RBC.
In total, the package of Baring Vostok structures in Ozon was valued at a symbolic $60,000, as per the agreement. At the same time, Ozon’s capitalization on the Moscow Exchange at the time of disclosure exceeded RUB380bn, that is, Baring’s market share was worth $1.37bn at that time, RBC calculated.
A Baring Vostok representative did not comment on the details of the divorce or its current status. Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov did not respond to The Bell's request.
In 2019, after a conflict with businessman Artem Avetisyan, who was well acquainted with Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, Calvey, along with several other partners and Baring employees, was arrested on charges of embezzling funds from Vostochny Bank.
Baring lost in court, lost control over the bank, and under the terms of the settlement agreement paid Vostochny 2.5bn rubles. Calvey himself received a five-and-a-half-year suspended sentence in the summer of 2021.
In 2022, before the war began, Calvey left Russia immediately after the court overturned a measure that had prohibited him from leaving the country for five years. And in the spring of 2023, the investor was unable to obtain a visa and attend court hearings to appeal his own verdict.
Baring Vostok sent documents on the division of assets to the government commission at the end of 2022, RBC wrote, citing sources.
Ozon on the rise
9 RUSSIA Country Report February 2024 www.intellinews.com