As it became known to Kommersant, Rosgosstrakh may be left by the general director of the insurer, Dmitry Markarov. This is due to the final stage of the transaction for the purchase of an insurance company by entrepreneur Vadim Belyaev's Otkritie Holding structures: in addition to the Otkritie FC bank, Otkritie Inform intends to participate in it. The rating agency S&P Global Ratings yesterday expressed concern about the weakening of the loan portfolio of the entrepreneur group - Otkritie Bank has already financed the insurer for 40 billion rubles, and Rosgosstrakh itself will remain unprofitable in 2017, according to S&P.
The fact that the general director of the insurer Dmitry Markarov may leave Rosgosstrakh was reported to Kommersant by a source familiar with the situation around the company. According to another interlocutor of Kommersant in the insurance market, Mr. Markarov has already left the company. Dmitry Markarov is a well-known market manager. In 1992, he took part in the creation of the Military Insurance Company (VSK) and was one of the founders of the Industrial Insurance Company (PSK, now SG UralSib). He has been with Rosgosstrakh since 2003, in December 2013 he was appointed CEO of the company. It was not possible to contact Mr. Markarov himself at the time of writing.
According to the interlocutors of Kommersant, his departure is logical in the light of the events on the acquisition of Rosgostrakh. As Kommersant already wrote (see Kommersant of January 30), Vadim Belyaev's structures are preparing to become buyers of the insurer. His Otkritie bank is a master of acquisitions. So, over the past few years, the bank has been "digested" by joining NOMOS-bank and the Khanty-Mansiysk bank, and the bank "Trust" is also being reorganized.
According to the Vedomosti newspaper, the Otkritie-Inform company (100% owned by Otkritie Holding, according to SPARK) and the bank of FC Otkritie are asking for the approval of the Antimonopoly Service (FAS) to determine the conditions for the work of Rosgosstrakh . They expect to gain control over the insurer through the purchase of 100% stakes in RGS-Holding, RGS-Assets and RGSN (RGS-Nedvizhimost). RGS-Holding is the main shareholder of Rosgosstrakh (31.7%).
Yesterday, S&P Global Ratings reported its fears regarding the weakening of the loan portfolio of the Otkritie group due to the acquisition of Rosgosstrakh. “As far as we know, there is a high probability that Otkritie Holding may complete the acquisition of the assets of RGS Holding, including Russia's largest insurance company, Rosgosstrakh PJSC, and Rosgosstrakh Bank before the end of this year. We expect Rosgosstrakh to remain unprofitable in 2017 and, in our view, its financial outlook remains uncertain,” S&P said in a press release. The bank financed the insurer for 40 billion rubles. The agency does not exclude that Otkritie will provide additional support to Rosgosstrakh (directly or indirectly) in the future, and this may affect the bank's creditworthiness.
The controlling shareholder of FC Otkritie Bank is Otkritie Holding, which directly and indirectly owns 55.2% of the shares. The bank's shares are also freely floated on the Moscow Exchange.
The largest beneficiaries of the bank are: the founder and one of the key co-owners of Otkritie, Vadim Belyaev (17.98% of voting shares), who returned to the operational management of the holding in August after a two-year break. Also among the shareholders are Ruben Aganbegyan, Dmitry Romaev, Evgeny Dankevich, Alexei Karakhan, President of LUKOIL Vagit Alekperov and member of the Board of Directors of LUKOIL Leonid Fedun, representatives of the ICT group Alexander Nesis, Alexei Gudaitis, Nikolai Dobrinov, Igor Finogenov, Dmitry Sokolov, Igor Tsyplakov, Konstantin Yanakov, VTB Bank (5.51%), Insurance Company Rosgosstrakh (3.75%, including through trust management of Savings Management LLC), businessmen Mikhail Parinov and Alexander Mamut. Minority shareholders own 6.56% of the shares. In addition, as Banki.ru analysts point out, part of the bank's shares is owned by the bank itself, including through cross-ownership schemes.
It was not possible to get prompt comments from representatives of the bank and businessman Belyaev. However, the market sees this deal as promising, despite the losses of Rosgosstrakh from OSAGO (33 billion rubles of a net loss under IFRS for 2016).
“Opening is creating a major Russian player in the financial market. In principle, insurance is one of the types of financial activity that is close to banking. As a result, the company is diversifying its business. Now it is a bank and a major broker. Added to this is the insurer. There is a certain synergistic effect,” comments Bogdan Zvarich, Senior Analyst at Freedom Finance Investment Company.
Tatiana Grishina, Yulia Polyakova
The internal confrontation between the former partners in the project to create the largest private banking and insurance group in the Russian Federation develops into an active confrontation with the prospect of litigation in the courts. The partnership agreement between Rosgosstrakh and Otkritie groups was concluded in 2016.
Former owner of Rosgosstrakh and its ex-president Danil Khachaturov at a press conference at the central office of Interfax on Wednesday announced full compliance with the agreements under the agreement with Otkritie Bank. At the same time, the other party - the Otkritie group - did not fulfill any obligations that were discussed when concluding the deal for the sale of Rosgosstrakh, he said.
"We thought and hoped for negotiations. There are no such negotiations. Negotiations are being conducted with us through the press. This is strange. I am already silent about criminal cases," D. Khachaturov said. He admitted that he is considering the possibility of filing lawsuits related to a deal concluded with Otkritie Bank, as a result of which a number of assets of the Rosgosstrakh group passed to Otkritie Bank.
“The insinuations that we didn’t finish something, didn’t finish it, have no basis. We gave everything away, everything that was at that time, at the end of 2016, on the balance sheet or in the group, everything what belonged to me," everything passed to the "Discovery" group. Another question is that the main story of the transaction was that the Otkritie group also had many obligations, none of the obligations are being fulfilled, he continued.
In accordance with previous agreements, D. Khachaturov transferred to Otkritie such assets as Rosgosstrakh, RGS Bank and NPF Rosgosstrakh. In addition, 2,000 real estate objects were transferred as part of the deal. As a result of the transaction, D. Khachaturov was supposed to receive a share in the united company, but due to coincidence, he was forced to transfer all assets for nothing.
“Such an asset as RGS Life was not transferred with other assets of the group, since it did not belong to me since 2015,” D. Khachaturov explained. The fact that Kapital Insurance later moved to Otkritie was explained by the fact that it was on the balance sheet of PJSC Rosgosstrakh. D. Khachaturov told reporters that he did not have any ownership in this company.
In turn, at a press conference in Interfax, the president of the CSKA football club and the RGS Life company, Evgeny Giner, confirmed that he was the ultimate owner of this company and the RGS Medicine company, which specializes in compulsory health insurance(CMI) and is in the top 3 in terms of the number of insured citizens. Since 2015, he has acted as the owner of companies under an option agreement, now his rights are being finalized, permission from the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia has been received.
INTENDED WITH BIG
"Together with Otkritie, which had 3 trillion rubles of assets, I did the largest private financial bank and the largest insurance group in the country. As a result, the financial capabilities of the bank and a small number of clients and offices were connected with the NPF and with the Rosgosstrakh bank, as well as with its huge branch network throughout the country and the army of Rosgosstrakh sellers. Both parties benefited from the deal. Everyone emerged victorious," D. Khachaturov said at a press conference.
However, the peculiarity of the situation turned out to be the simultaneous problems of the participants in the transaction. According to the former owner of Rosgosstrakh himself, by the end of 2016 it was obvious to him that the company would receive a loss of 30 billion rubles in 2017. After that, D. Khachaturov came to the Central Bank for negotiations with a rescue plan and a potential investor.
The agreement with Otkritie Bank was concluded in April 2016, and since June, difficulties have already begun at the bank itself, now it is undergoing a sanation procedure, its capital was brought to 1 ruble during the sanation. Then the bank needed additional capitalization; it developed a development strategy until 2021. Rosgosstrakh is considered an integral part of this strategy. By the end of 2020, the insurance company should make a profit of 20 billion rubles. At the end of 2018, his profit will be small.
Commenting on the results of the activities of Rosgosstrakh in 2017, D. Khachaturov said: "According to the annual report under IFRS, the loss of Rosgosstrakh amounted to 58 billion rubles. These losses are divided into two parts. One half is our very expectations and the loss from OSAGO operations in the amount of 30 billion rubles, the rest is the result of a revaluation of the securities of Otkritie Bank itself on the balance sheet of Rosgosstrakh (as previously reported, according to the annual report of Rosgosstrakh, the company received more than 29 billion rubles of loss due to the depreciation of the bank's shares " Opening" and bonds of the holding of the same name).
“For the first quarter of this year, Rosgosstrakh has already made a profit. Due to what? Due to the fact that the share of OSAGO has been radically reduced over the past 3 years, which in 2015-2016 reached 40% of the all-Russian fees for this type. Due to the fact that the rules on in-kind compensation in OSAGO began to work, a strict policy of reducing sales was pursued. They did everything right. Well done. I don’t see any problems with Rosgosstrakh either with reserves or with assets. Goodwill of Otkritie Bank in the deal with Rosgosstrakh, according to the bank's IFRS reporting, amounted to 32 billion rubles in 2017," D. Khachaturov said.
OFFENSIVE
Active offensive actions against partners turned out to be unexpected, D. Khachaturov admitted to journalists. So, according to him, the initiation of a criminal case against his brother and closest partner Sergei Khachaturov "blew the brain."
Earlier it was reported that the Lefortovo Court of Moscow on June 13 planned to consider a petition to extend the detention of the former vice-president of Rosgosstrakh, S. Khachaturov, and the house arrest of the ex-shareholder of Rosgosstrakh Bank, Nadezhda Klepalskaya, accused of embezzlement of more than a billion rubles. The investigation asks to extend their preventive measure for another three months, until September 17. They were charged under Part 4 of Art. 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (embezzlement or appropriation of another's property on an especially large scale). The detention took place in Moscow on April 17 by the FSB. On April 18, the Lefortovo Court of Moscow, at the request of the FSB, chose a measure of restraint for them. S. Khachaturov was placed in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center until June 16. According to the media, the amount stolen can be several times more than 1 billion rubles - up to 5 billion rubles; however, the exact size is still being determined by investigators. S. Khachaturov does not admit his guilt.
D. Khachaturov on Wednesday acknowledged that the initiation of a criminal case against his brother and partner S. Khachaturov is also connected with another part of the deal concluded between the Rosgosstrakh group and the Otkritie bank.
Last week, the Moscow Arbitration Court received a claim from Rosgosstrakh, which belongs to the reorganized Otkritie Bank, for 116 billion rubles, the claim is related to the misuse of a trademark, the main amount of claims was 2 billion rubles, the rest - penalties and fines. A similar lawsuit was filed against RGS Medicine, the amount of the claim is unknown. As E. Giner, the president of the CSKA football club and the RGS Life company, explained to journalists, "the companies themselves have not yet received claims, but they are aware of them." According to him, the assessment of the Rosgosstrakh Zhizn company brand was carried out by an individual private entrepreneur from the region.
"RGS Life has never been on the balance sheet of Rosgosstrakh. It is an independent business, like NPF and Rosgosstrakh Bank. They are connected by a brand and in some places by a network. At one time we acquired the life insurer of the Otkritie group, and the brands were used mutually another 2 years. One of the key provisions of the agreement of 2016 with the Otkritie holding was joint sales in chains. These agreements were reached and fixed under English law in London," D. Khachaturov specified during a press conference.
E.Giner confirmed that the agreement between RGS Life and Rosgosstrakh is still in effect today. “Until recently, Rosgosstrakh and Otkritie Bank regularly received commissions from the sale of RGS Life products. RGS Life did not receive notice of its intention to terminate the existing agreements,” said E. Giner.
Answering questions from media representatives, D. Khachaturov expressed categorical disagreement with the fact that the Rosgosstrakh insurance company is undergoing reorganization. “Rosgosstrakh has no sanitation – this is a fundamental thing. If you don’t like the contract that exists, you can apply for its termination,” said the former owner of Rosgosstrakh.
"I do not understand the logic in which parts of the transaction are disputed, despite the fact that it itself is not disputed," the ex-head of Rosgosstrakh explained. At the same time, he specified that, "of course, we are not talking about the return of Rosgosstrakh itself." D. Khachaturov refused to clarify the possible positions formulated in the claims or their amounts, stating that such decisions could be made in the near future.
At the same time, he stressed that he himself and the current owner of the RGS Life company, E. Giner, are ready to conduct a dialogue with interested parties in order to remove all disputed points and resolve all issues in a pre-trial order.
BACKGROUND
In mid-August 2017, the FAS Russia approved a deal between Rosgosstrakh and Otkritie Inform, the owner of Otkritie Holding, Vadim Belyaev. In fact, the insurance company has been under the management of Otkritie managers since February 2017, Rosgosstrakh reported. It was assumed that the former owner of the insurer, D. Khachaturov, would receive a minority stake in the joint structure, but he never received a share. Officially, Otkritie Bank formalized control over Rosgosstrakh on August 28, 2017. Later, the Central Bank announced the reorganization of the bank together with the insurance company. Now the bank owns 96.66% in Rosgosstrakh.
At the end of 2017, the head of Otkritie and chairman of the board of directors of Rosgosstrakh, Mikhail Zadornov, said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper that "theft reigned from top to bottom" in the company. He admitted that OSAGO losses could affect the company's financial results, but at the same time noted that the company "simply burned out that its business model does not correspond to today's in any way and has never been aimed at bringing shareholders legal profit. "Apparently, the shareholders of Rosgosstrakh preferred to benefit from owning the company in some other way," he said.
As previously reported, RGS Life was part of the Rosgosstrakh group. After Rosgosstrakh, along with Otkritie Bank, entered the perimeter of the financial recovery conducted by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, it turned out that since 2016, Alkhas Sangulia has been the ultimate beneficiary of the life insurer. At the beginning of 2018, E. Giner announced that since November 2015, all rights to the RGS Life company belong to him.
The additional capitalization of Rosgosstrakh by Otkritie reached 106 billion rubles in 2017, the insurer said in a press release citing CEO"Rosgosstrakh" by Nikolaus Fry.
The insurance company and Danil Khachaturov's bank of the same name went to the owners of Otkritie and, ultimately, to the state for free, but with impressive debts.
Rosgosstrakh, just bought by Otkritie, will become one of the main items of expenditure of the Central Bank for the reorganization of the bank. The Central Bank will spend 250-400 billion rubles on the additional capitalization of FC Otkritie. The assessment is preliminary, so the reorganization is likely to be the largest in history. Prior to that, the Bank of Moscow was the record holder, for the improvement of which the state allocated 295 billion rubles.
According to The Bell, the Central Bank has been considering various options for solving the problems of Otkritie since the beginning of 2017. Due diligence of the bank began in May 2017. Information on the withdrawal of assets from the bank from the Central Bank "is not yet available." In the case of Otkritie, one of the main items of expenditure of the Central Bank will be the support of Rosgosstrakh, which has just been bought by the bank. The purchase of an insurer with tens of millions of customers (21.5 million for OSAGO alone) was Otkritie's last major deal on its way to the "too big to fail" status.
OSAGO brought huge losses to Rosgosstrakh (in total, in 2016, the company's net loss amounted to 33 billion rubles, in the first half of 2017 - more than 23 billion rubles). But the shareholders of Otkritie expected that the deal would turn it into the largest private financial group in Russia with assets of 4-5 trillion rubles and 55 million customers.
The former owner of Rosgosstrakh, Danil Khachaturov, was to become a minority shareholder of this largest group. How did it all end? As The Bell found out, Khachaturov, as a result of the deal for the sale of Rosgosstrakh, did not receive, as planned, a stake in the Otkritie group.
The sale of Rosgosstrakh by Khachaturov became known at the end of last year. The deal was supposed to be cashless - the insurance company, RGS-Bank and other assets of Khachaturov, including real estate, were supposed to go to the Otkritie group. Prior to the regulator's decision to reorganize the bank, it was planned that Khachaturov would receive a minority stake in the Otkritie holding company for his assets. Vedomosti estimated Khachaturov's future stake at 8%.
The asset sale deal was closed, but Khachaturov did not receive any package, sources close to the bank and Khachaturov himself said. One of the sources close to the businessman interprets the deal as follows: Khachaturov actually gave the company away, getting rid of the unprofitable business. Now it is the problem of the state. The Central Bank promises that Rosgosstrakh and other companies of the Otkritie Bank group will continue to function normally and serve customers. The chief managing director of the insurance company, Nikolaus Frei, hopes that the decision of the Central Bank will help the company overcome the crisis in the OSAGO segment.
In fact, the debts incurred by Khachaturov and the shareholders of Otkritie Bank will now be paid by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and the Russian budget.
At the same time, the company showed significant financial losses throughout 2016 due to a decrease in income in its core business — OSAGO. So, for the nine months of 2016, its net loss under RAS amounted to 4.3 billion rubles, and according to IFRS for the half year, 8.65 billion rubles. On December 12, the S&P rating agency put Rosgosstrakh's ratings on review with a negative outlook due to the instability of earnings. Meanwhile, a source close to the deal notes that in mid-December the State Duma adopted in the first reading amendments to the OSAGO law, which should help stabilize the situation in this segment of the insurance business.
Rosgosstrakh, due to high losses in OSAGO, began to reduce its share in the segment last year. Thus, as of March 31, 2015, it was 37.7%, and as of June 30, 2015, it was 34.8%. As of September 30, 2016, the share of Rosgosstrakh in the OSAGO market decreased to 24.4%. The company began to reduce its share after, from the end of May to the beginning of June 2015, the Central Bank limited the validity of Rosgosstrakh's license to carry out OSAGO due to violations in the application of the reduction factor (bonus-malus) when calculating the insurance premium.
The main beneficiary of the RGS insurance group is Danila Khachaturov, who owns the main assets of the group, PJSC Rosgosstrakh, RGS Bank, IC RGS Investments through the structure of Cypriot offshores - RGS Holdings Ltd, RGS Asseets LTD, RGS Company Ltd.
According to the materials of Rosgosstrakh, 50.46% of its shares are owned by PJSC RGS Holding, 10.5% - by RGS Assets, 6.7% - by Savings Management, which is the pension savings trustee of NPF RGS.
The main beneficiary of RGS Bank, according to reports on the website of the Central Bank, is Sergey Khachaturov, who controls almost 75% of its shares through Cyprus offshore companies.
On December 19, during the day, there were no comments from the parties on one of the largest deals on the market. Thus, the key parameters of the transaction - the amount, the share that Khachaturov will receive in Otkritie, the timing and stages - remain unknown. Experts do not rule out that the deal may be forced for Rosgosstrakh, which is in a difficult financial situation. According to Dmitry Monastyrshin, an analyst at Promsvyazbank, the merger with Otkritie is a way for Rosgosstrakh to improve its financial condition. “You can kind of call it a kind of private financial recovery,” he points out. Monastyrshin believes that of the private players (state banks have repeatedly reported that they are not interested in rehabilitation projects), Otkritie is “the only one who is able to digest this business, given that Rosgosstrakh is in a loss-making state.” According to RBC, Otkritie was the only contender for the company's assets.
In the absence of official comments on the deal from Otkritie and Rosgosstrakh, experts find it difficult to assess in detail its impact on the participants. “To evaluate, you need to know how the deal will be structured,” adds Moody’s analyst Petr Palkin. “We need to understand how the process of business consolidation will take place,” S&P also believes. Rosgosstrakh is a fairly large asset, so this process may take time,” says S&P analyst Ekaterina Tolstova. “We estimate the announced additional issue in the amount of 46 billion rubles. as significant given the current situation in OSAGO (which can improve capitalization), but other factors must be taken into account, such as the level of unprofitability and the amount of liquidity in the insurance company,” Tolstova believes.
The unprofitability of Rosgosstrakh in the OSAGO segment is also called by the managing director of the National Rating Agency (NRA) Pavel Samiev. “The situation with OSAGO is unpredictable for the entire market. And this is the main risk for the buyer,” Samiev says. “In addition, we should not forget about the risks of the integration process as such: they are quite large, because both management and the management system are combined. In such a situation, it will be important to what extent it will be possible to retain the client base,” adds Dmitry Fedenkov, an analyst at Nordea Bank. He notes that very few mergers and acquisitions in the Russian financial market have resulted in a noticeable synergistic effect and have a positive impact on the results of their participants.
Quotes of shares of "Rosgosstrakh" on the Moscow Exchange during the day slightly decreased. However, compared to yesterday's close, the shares rose by 0.5% to 0.4 rubles.
The merger creates the country's largest private financial group. Control over it will go to Otkritie, and the main owner of Rosgosstrakh, Danil Khachaturov, will become a minority shareholder of the new holding. Experts agree that the deal is useful both for Rosgosstrakh, which will be able to raise additional capital, and for the entire Russian economy, which lacks successful examples of mergers in the banking sector.
RBC and Vedomosti wrote about the future merger of two major players in the banking and insurance markets. According to them, the association was initiated by Rosgosstrakh and Khachaturov personally. He was forced to take such a step by the difficult situation in the OSAGO market and the need to raise new funds for business development. The customer base is expected new structure, the birth of which is scheduled for 2017, will be about 50 million people, and assets will exceed four trillion rubles.
According to Vedomosti, the deal will not include the pension business of Rosgosstrakh, the non-state pension fund RGS. It is not yet clear whether RGS-Nedvizhimost will join the merger. Now it has 270 Rosgosstrakh offices and a debt of 28.7 billion rubles on its balance sheet. Despite the fact that Otkritie will gain control over the future group, Rosgosstrakh will continue to develop and manage the insurance sector. It is also known that all members of the combined structure will continue to work under the current brands.
Both parties hope that the merger will help them achieve synergy from combining the expertise of teams and not only: they are going to increase the client base thanks to the developments of Rosgosstrakh, which, in turn, expects to take advantage of the holding's achievements in terms of remote services. Meanwhile, cooperation between "Discovery" and "Rosgosstrakh" has been going on for more than a year. Among the shareholders of Otkritie Bank there are structures associated with Rosgosstrakh: they own 8.7% of the credit institution, another 1% belongs directly to the insurance company, and 7.5% belongs to the trustee of NPF RGS.
Despite this, Khachaturov did not immediately decide to unite with Otkritie. First, he tried to negotiate with Sberbank and VTB. The latter is one of the main shareholders of Otkritie (9.99%), and his first deputy chairman, Yuri Solovyov, last week, together with Khachaturov and co-owner of Otkritie, Vadim Belyaev, met with the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina. At the meeting, the future partners told the regulator about their plans and announced the start of a mutual due diligence procedure. As a result, both Sberbank and VTB refused to participate in the deal directly, largely due to the depressing situation on the OSAGO market, which still remains the main direction of Rosgosstrakh (the company until recently accounted for 41% of all transactions with OSAGO in country, now - 25%).
This commitment to OSAGO has already resulted in losses of 15.5 billion rubles in the first half of 2016 (two times more than in the same period a year earlier). In this regard, the insurer announced in autumn its intention to raise an additional 46 billion rubles (about 20% of the authorized capital) through an additional issue. It was planned to conduct it on the open market. In May last year, the Central Bank even suspended the license of Rosgosstrakh for OSAGO due to violations in the sale of policies. “The OSAGO segment is really very unprofitable now, and that is why Rosgosstrakh needs to raise additional capital. The company is the leader in this segment, including in those regions where other insurers were reluctant to operate due to high losses,” Aleksey Bredikhin, director of the Financial Institutions Ratings Group at the Analytical Credit Rating Agency (ACRA), told Profile.
In the summer, in the most problematic regions in terms of OSAGO availability (with one insurer for the entire subject of the Russian Federation), the Single Agent program was launched. She launched Russian union auto insurers (RSA). According to the rules of the program, an insurer present in such a problematic region is obliged to sell the policies of all PCA member companies as an agent (moreover, the company whose policy the car owner gets is determined randomly - by the number of the title). Rosgosstrakh joined the program on the last day, when it was already threatened with sanctions from the PCA - up to the deprivation of a license for OSAGO. “So far, many technical, technological and procedural issues remain open, but if it is possible to find a joint solution to all problems, then the agent can become one of the effective tools for improving the situation on the OSAGO market,” Rosgosstrakh eventually admitted.
“The state is taking measures to stabilize the market, for example, the rule on the priority of compensation in kind. This should improve the financial performance of OSAGO insurers. The process is still underway and is still being considered in the State Duma, but everyone hopes that it will be completed. Apparently, this is why an investor enters this company, provides it with resources that will allow it to survive a difficult period and restore its position in the future. So I can only evaluate the deal with Otkritie positively,” says Bredikhin.
Now Otkritie is one of the few financial groups in Russia without its own insurance business. However, this was not always the case. In 2011, Vadim Belyaev decided to develop this area and founded two companies at once within his financial group: Otkritie Insurance and, separately, Otkritie Life Insurance. Subsequently, the businessman decided to get rid of both assets: Otkritie Insurance, which needed additional capitalization, was bought last year by one of the leaders of Opora Rossii Alexander Kondratenkov (who renamed the company Opora), and Otkritie Life Insurance was transferred to Rosgosstrakh in September and its subsidiary Rosgosstrakh zhizni.
Then the general director of Otkritie, Ruben Aganbegyan, said that the group decided to "focus on those segments of the financial market in which it occupies a leading position and has significant expertise." “Despite the fact that Otkritie life insurance shows profitable growth, the size of its business is significantly lower than that of the market leaders. Therefore, Otkritie decided to change the format of its presence in this market: not to develop own business for life insurance, and continue selling insurance products at the offices of Otkritie Bank on a commission basis. Rosgosstrakh called the deal an opportunity to attract a professional team with a high-quality insurance portfolio for relatively little money.
Mergers of major players in the financial sector are extremely rare in Russia, says Jan Art, Vice President of the Rossiya Banking Association. “The main reason is the lack of transparency and incomprehensibility Russian business. In the banking sector, it is high, but in business in general - alas, no. Therefore, each such transaction attracts special attention. And even among the few transactions, the vast majority are not mergers, but acquisitions. We still know how to absorb each other, but we can't unite and consolidate. Therefore, the actions of the "Discovery" against this background inspire respect. Here we are talking about the merger, albeit with the dominant role of Otkritie. This is a very important example for the future of the Russian economy as a whole. The whole market will watch the deal with interest, especially small banks, which are constantly being called upon to consolidate,” Art said in an interview with Profile.