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Igor Kim, Ursa Bank: not a celebrity or movie star, just an ambitious and successful banker |
In such a context, Igor Kim, chairman of leading regional banking player Ursa Bank, cuts a refreshingly modest and unassuming figure. "I’m not a celebrity, I’m not a movie star," he says, adding that he hasn’t even been to Monaco, let alone owns apartments or a fleet of yachts there. Not that he couldn’t afford them of course, you understand. Latest estimates value Ursa Bank, the jewel in Kim’s financial services providers’ collection, at about $4.2 billion. Kim has at least a 35.5% call on that, not to mention his holdings in smaller banks spread across Russia, which have helped to propel him into the ranks of the top-100 richest lists in Russia. It’s all a far cry from 1993 when Kim and his business partners, Andrey Bekarev and Aleksandr Taranov, entered the banking industry when they became the main owners of Russkiy Narodniy Bank, the first step in a course of acquisitions that has enabled Kim to build what is widely recognized as Russia’s leading regional banking franchise.