DNB Russia is a regional leader in Murmansk with a strong market share in retail and corporate banking and has for more than a decade been considered to be a lighthouse for Norwegian investments in Barents Russia.
DNB Russia is sold to Asokerco Trading Limited, whose main owner is billionaire Mikahil Shishkhanov, majority shareholder of BN Bank, reports DNB in a stock exchange report on Friday. The terms of the transaction are not disclosed. DNB says the sale is in line with DNB’s strategy to focus its operations, optimize the use of capital and increase profitability.
By April 1, 2014, DNB Bank Russia’s assets stood at 5,9 billion rubles (€118 million), capital is 1,4 billion rubles (€28 million) and citizens’ deposits amount to 2 billion rubles (€40 million), according to Izevestia reporting on the sale.
Shy away from Russia
Financial Times writes on Friday that foreign banks have begun to shy away from Russia as the geopolitical crisis over Ukraine has deepened in recent months.
Also on Friday, Chief Executive Officer Yngve Slyngstad with Norway’s sovereign wealth fund told reporters in Oslo that the fund is reviewing risk in Russia.
Different risk profile
“We observe that there’s a different risk profile,” Slyngstad said quoted by Bloomberg. “We are at any given time also considering conditions that have dimensions of geopolitics and geopolitical risk.”
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, nick-named “oil-fund” by the Norwegians, is the world’s biggest with more than NOK 5,000 billion (€600 billion). By the end of 2012, NOK 25 billion (€3 billion) of that was invested in Russian companies.
Investments on Kola
As BarentsObserver reported, Gazprom tops the list, where Norway’s value of the 0,91 percent of the shares in the company is NOK 5,7 billion (€751 million). Russia’s largest private oil company, Lukoil, is number two on the list where the fund’s 1,78 percent of the shares is worth NOK 5,5 billion (€731 million).
Other petroleum companies include Bashneft, Novatek, Gazprom Neft and Transneft.
The fund also owns shares in several industrial and mining companies with sub-divisions on the Kola Peninsula, including iron-ore miner Severstal in Olenogorsk and fertilizer giant PhosAgro in Apatity.
