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sell over 20 turbines by 2030. However, InterRAO operates the project through its Russian Gas Turbines (RGT) joint venture with General Electric, which is likely to be scrapped due to sanctions.
Another contender on the gas turbine market is REP Holding, a subsidiary of Russian Gazprombank, but it also operates as a joint venture with a foreign company, the Italian Ansaldo Energy.
Siemens also holds 65% in a joint venture with Power Machines, the engineering company of sanctioned steel tycoon Alexei Mordashev. Mordashev also tried to compete with Siemens for the production of gas turbines and previously rallied state support for his efforts to produce turbines domestically. His Power Machines has repeatedly urged authorities to shift lucrative state contracts for gas
turbines away from foreign companies like Siemens and it has aimed for gas turbine contracts together with ODK Saturn, a subsidiary of Russian state technology agency Rostec.
In Russia Siemens also operates Siemens Transformatory. Siemens Gamesa develops renewable energy projects with Enel Russia. It also produces electric intercity trains Lastochka through its subsidiary Sinara, which operates a joint venture with Urals Locomotives.
Previously in March Siemens already notified the Russian Railways of the suspension of a contract on purchases of new Sapsan electric trains. The €1.1bn contract was signed in 2019 and covered purchases and maintenance of 13 new Sapsans, with the deliveries scheduled for 2022.”
Spared Russian oligarch Potanin sweeps banking assets with Tinkoff deal
bne IntelliNews
Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin's Interros will acquire a 35% stake in bank TCS Group that operates under the Tinkoff brand from the family trust of its founder Oleg Tinkov. Potanin is one of Russia’s richest oligarchs and
is rebuilding his banking empire. The Tinkoff Bank deal has already been approved by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), RBC business portal reported on May 2.
Potanin, CEO and shareholder of metals major Norilsk Nickel and who is not under Western sanctions, will emerge as a major banking player in post-invasion Russian, as his Interros is also acquiring Russia’s 11th largest bank Rosbank, fully owned by French Société Générale.
And he picked up one more piece to add to his burgeoning banking empire with the acquisition of payment processing company UCS (United Card Services) for an undisclosed amount it was reported on May 2, with the deal approved by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) and the Central Bank of Russia (CBR).
Interros said it acquired UCS to “continue developing the banking business”. UCS is the fifth largest card payment company globally as of 2020, with over $16.4bn payments processed (as compared to $30bn annually by Russia’s largest bank Sberbank).
The bank asset acquisition deals represent a return to banking for Potanin, who made his first fortune in the 1990s with Uneximbank that speculated against the ruble during the years of hyperinflation and became a cash cow making Potanin one of the richest men in the country.
Potanin use his enormous cash pile to buy Norilsk Nickel in the now notorious fixed loans-for-shares deal in 1995-96 that made him a billionaire all over again.
Thanks to the importance of Norilsk Nickel to the international metals market and the key role the company plays in supplying PGM (platinum group metals) to the electric vehicles (EV) business, Potanin and his companies have so far escaped Western sanctions.
In the 1998 financial crisis Uneximbank went bust but Potanin moved all the good assets out into Rosbank that was a minor bank in Potanin’s holdings that took over his banking business. At the end of that decade Potanin sold Rosbank to Société Générale, which used it as the basis of building up its Russian retail business.
As covered in detail by bne IntelliNews, Tinkov was one of the prominent oligarchs and businessmen sanctioned by the UK, and lost his billionaire status after his fortune plummeted by more than $5bn in a month. His TCS Group, former investor darling operating Russia's only pure online bank Tinkoff, was listed on the London Stock Exchange, with a capitalisation topping $20bn in 2021.
After Tinkov published a sharp foul-mouthed critique of the "insane war" in Ukraine on his social media, Tinkoff Bank immediately distanced itself from its founder and Tinkov reportedly started to look for a quick exit from the asset.
The amount of the deal is undisclosed, but Tinkov’s 35% stake was previously valued at $2.4bn before the war. Tinkov reported got a few pennies on the dollar in his deal with Potanin.
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