Severnaya Kazna, based in Ekaterinburg, announces the sale of its controlling stake to Alfa-Bank. The deal was transacted with participation of the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) and the Bank of Russia.
As the Ekaterinburg-based lender said in a press release, as a shareholder Alfa-Bank will use every effort for the bank to fulfill its obligations to clients in full. According to Severnaya Kazna board chairman Vladimir Frolov, with the arrival of Alfa-Bank Severnaya Kazna’s clients will get a shareholder, “whose strength and financial power are absolutely comparable with Russia’s largest state-run banks”.
“I’m grateful for Alfa-Bank that it is willing to help Severnaya Kazna meet its obligations to clients, thereby taking into account my personal guarantees” — Frolov said. “Addressing Severnaya Kazna clients, I would like to provide absolute assurance that with Alfa-Bank on board they will find a reliable partner, whose performance has been successfully time-tested.
Severnaya Kazna is a second-biggest lending institution in the Sverdlovsk region. According to the data from news agency Banki.ru and Interfax-CEA, as of July 1, 2008 net assets of Severnaya Kazna stood at Rub 42.36 bln (69th place in Russia). Alfa-Bank is in 6th place among Russian banks in terms of net assets (Rub 577.74 bln).
Issuer profile: SEVERNAYA KAZNA Bank, an open joint-stock company, was founded on September 9, 1992. At present the company’s major shareholders include Novator Experimental Design Bureau, Ural-Avia Airline Company, Kalinin Machine Building Plant, "Nalogi Rossii" (Taxes of Russia) Association, and some others leading businesses of the Ural Region and the Russian Federation.
SEVERNAYA KAZNA Bank is the main body of a large Financial Industrial Group that comprises an audit company, an insurance company, a leasing company, a real estate agency, an industrial holding, and a pension fund.
At present the bank has seventeen branches and offices in Ekaterinburg, Cheliabinsk, Nizhniy Tagil and other Russian cities.
