When Vladimir Ryskin joined the fledgling Unexim Bank as head of treasury a few years ago it was like going back to college. He knew almost everyone. They were either former classmates at the prestigous Moscow Institute of Finance, or former workmates at the International Bank for Economic Cooperation (IBEC), or friends among Moscow’s tight-knit social and professional elite.
Unexim is Russia’s nearest equivalent to a blue-blooded bank – like JP Morgan in the US or Deutsche Bank in Europe. It is powered by the same people who would have aspired to the administrative elite that ran the Soviet Union. Many, such as founder and chairman Vladimir Potanin, were members of Komsomol, the Young Communist League. Later they gained executive positions in government or – like the bank’s co-founder, Michail Prokhorov – the state-owned banks. In capitalist Russia these thirty-something communists-turned-bankers have in four years made Unexim the largest privately owned bank.
Now they’re preparing to create Russia’s leading investment bank. In July they announced that Unexim’s associate bank, International Company for Finance and Investment (ICFI), will merge with Renaissance Capital Group, the bank set up by a group of former CSFB excutives led by Boris Jordan. The resulting investment bank, MFK Renaissance (MFK stands for Mezhdunarodnaya Finansovaya Kompaniya, as ICFI is known in Russian), will be Russia’s biggest.
That will make the Unexim banking group Russia’s strongest commercial and investment banking entity. Although exact ownership lines are unclear, its sphere of influence extends to major holdings in Russian industry. These include stakes in Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest nickel producer, Russia’s fifth largest oil company Sidanko and telecoms giant Svyazinvest. Around 30 companies with a combined annual turnover of more than $10 billion are part of a shadowy entity called Interros which has Unexim at its centre (although not all companies in the Unexim orbit are part of Interros). Their activities including shipping, energy, metals, chemicals, military projects, retail and property.
But the youngsters behind this empire – Potanin is 36 and Prokhorov 32 – aren’t finished yet. Unperturbed by accusations of corruption and influence-peddling, they aim to make the group bigger still. Citing Deutsche Bank as their role model, they talk of making Unexim one of the world’s top banks and, within Russia, of eclipsing massive state-owned savings bank Sberbank, whose assets are nine times bigger than Unexim’s. Unexim has only a small retail network, but building it up is top priority.
Shy of the press
Little is known about Potanin and Prokhorov. Potanin receives considerable press coverage because of his role as dealmaker, but few journalists have talked to him at length. Few western bankers have met him. Those who have refuse to talk about it, even off the record, fearing that revelations could backfire. Information about Potanin’s business strategy and style, his relationships with Prokhorov and Jordan and his aims and ambitions is scanty. But last month he agreed to talk to Euromoney (see interview).
Prokhorov is even more secretive. He also agreed to an interview, his first one-on-one discussion with a journalist. He clearly didn’t enjoy it. While Potanin relaxed and enjoyed the challenge, Prokhorov was ill at ease, rebuffing some questions and answering others facetiously, especially the personal ones.
Some serious criticisms are levelled at Unexim. Detractors say government connections helped it amass state resources on the cheap and only now, from a position of strength, has it become a convert to fair play in Russia’s privatization auctions. Controversy surrounds Potanin’s nine months in government as first deputy prime minister in charge of the economy and his close relationship with Russia’s leading reformer, finance minister Anatoly Chubais.
Some key assets, notably Norilsk and Sidanko, were obtained through a controversial loans-for-shares scheme. Russian banks had lent money to state-owned industries using their shares for collateral. When the loans were not repaid the banks were able to gain large chunks of industry through auctions that appeared slanted in their favour. Unexim executives don’t deny they have enjoyed top-level access to the government, but so have their competitors, they say. They insist nothing illegal was done.
Says Potanin: “[Political connections] were not the main thing which allowed us to create all this. The main thing was having the right strategic plan and the right people … for example, we were one of the first to acquire important industrial assets, such as Norilsk and Sidanko, under the loans-for-shares scheme.”
But it’s an advantage that could slip away. Unexim is surrounded by competitors eager to damage its reputation. It is faced with turning round the heavy industrial behemoths in its charge and having to survive in Russia’s turbulent economic and political climate.
“Russia is a market that is totally fluid,” says Hans-Joerg Rudloff, chairman of MC BBL Securities “Every day it’s being [newly] put together like the Euromarket in the 1970s. Let’s assume that one of the private banks merges with one of the state-owned banks. You would then have a completely different structure. So you cannot say that [Unexim] has the lead or that they will keep it.”
But up to now Unexim has had the right strategy and the right people to win. The loans-for-shares scheme was its idea. It is usually attributed to Potanin, who proposed it to the government, but it in fact came from Unexim deputy chairman Mikhail Alekseyev, who also helped create Russia’s government bond (GKO) market. Potanin’s own idea is said to have been for the banks to trust-manage the companies on behalf of the government.
Loans for shares brought speedy and far-reaching changes to the Russian industrial landscape. At the time of its introduction in 1995, the Russian government feared a Communist return to power and was desperate to move assets into private hands as quickly as possible. Unexim provided the technical means to achieve this.
Informal dealings
Unexim had seen success right from the outset, when Potanin and Prokhorov first got involved in finance by establishing ICFI in early 1992. They earned handsome spreads by conducting informal debt buy-backs on behalf of eastern European countries, tracking down assets to overseas holders often based in Germany and Japan, purchasing them at a discount and cancelling them.
“They were pioneers in these debt cancellations just as Unexim is now in raising rouble debt for the Russian regions,” says Nicholas Jordan, general director of DMG in Moscow. Nicholas Jordan is the brother of Boris Jordan, who will become chief executive of MFK Renaissance when it is formed early next year with Potanin as chairman. Nicholas Jordan says: “My relations with Potanin precede those of my brother. And when Boris was thinking of leaving CSFB to start on his own, I suggested Potanin would be a good person for him to work with.”
Other stories suggest it was Potanin who headhunted Jordan from CSFB or that the two were introduced by Jordan’s uncle (the Jordans are Americans of Russian heritage) – the partnership with Jordan shows Potanin’s penchant for attracting bright people to Unexim and his willingness to pay top dollar to get them. The relationship with Jordan also shows that Potanin, unlike some other Russian bankers, will hire foreigners if they offer the skills he can’t find at home. But usually he and Prokhorov recruit from Moscow’s social elite.
Russia, despite its size, has a suprisingly small and concentrated professional corps. “In Soviet Russia the inner sanctum of people who could read and travel widely and therefore understand western economics was very small,” says a London-based investment banker who has worked with Unexim. “Unexim was able to draw on this talent and grow quickly. It came from nowhere.”
Prokhorov and Potanin could take their pick of the banking elite. Prokhorov brought a team from IBEC, a bank that served the former Comecon communist bloc trading organization and was a prized employer. Prokhorov had been in charge of hard-currency operations. But at Unexim some recruits found the pecking order a little different from what they were used to. Gennady Kanserov, for example, who at 46 is the oldest member of the management board, used to be Prokhorov’s and Ryskin’s boss at IBEC; now he reports to them.
Ryskin, now first deputy chairman and the bank’s number three, feels part of a small commune: “It’s getting to the situation where you don’t need to make a telephone call to your friends, you can reach them all by intercom [at Unexim].” Even with Potanin, Ryskin had a connection. Both men were sent as students to collective farms outside Moscow to help with the harvest. For a few weeks one September they worked in neighbouring villages and visited the same disco.
But even within “the commune” there is an inner core whose members have a special bond and who socialize together. There are four senior executives who are little known outside the bank but have considerable power within it, partly because of their strong connections with Prokhorov and Potanin. All four were fellow students of Prokhorov at the Moscow Institute of Finance. The most important of these is Dmitry Ushakov, who previously worked for Deloitte & Touche and is the mastermind behind Unexim’s complicated structure, known in the bank as the systema. Ushakov is always consulted by Prokhorov and Potanin before a deal is put together and on tax issues but, perhaps because of his closeness to top management, is regarded by other staff as aloof. The other members of this inner sanctum (tusovka), as it is known in Unexim, are Igor Antonov (head of regional development), Georgi Zabolotsky and Oleg Kasianov. All four have the title of deputy chairman as do 12 members of the management board.
Other staff may not be quite as close to the leadership but they are all consummate professionals. One is former IBEC staffer Julia Basova, whose role in credit has helped to keep the bank’s ratio of non-perfoming loans below that of many competitors. And Unexim is a lending bank; it doesn’t just invest in GKOs. “It is a difficult job explaining to important people in Russia that their credit standing may not be up to scratch and Basova does an outstanding job,” says Heidi Crebo, debt capital markets director of Lehman Brothers, who worked on Unexim’s private placement, ratings and Eurobond when she was with Merrill Lynch. The offering circular for Unexim’s $200 million Eurobond launched in July, states: “Since its establishment in 1993, Unexim Bank has not written off any loans.”
Alekseyev, who built the bank’s depositary and custody operations, was pursued particularly vigorously by Prokhorov and Potanin. They first approached him in 1992 shortly after he joined Mezhcombank: he refused to join them. Alekseyev had worked at the ministry of finance, where, as his CV states, he held the position of “deputy head of the chief directorate for the improvement of the financial and credit mechanism”. At the time Alekseyev thought Mezhcombank seemed a more secure option. In 1993 Prokhorov told Alekseyev he was going to create the biggest bank in Russia. “I didn’t believe him,” recalls Alekseyev. But a year later he succumbed to a second approach and joined Unexim. He has spent much of his time preparing its Eurobond issue and developing relations with the US Securities & Exchange Commission. Unexim hopes to open a representative office in New York and later to list there.
Ryskin came from Mosbusinessbank, which he rejoined after a spell working in Israel as a fixed-income trader for Bank Leumi. Ryskin’s replacement as head of treasury at Unexim is Alexander Popov, who came from Inkombank. At 27 Popov is the youngest board member; friends say he reads finance textbooks at night for relaxation.
Even competitors admit that the recruitment of top staff has enabled Unexim to run a very effective operation. “Prokhorov and his team were a little more professional than our staff at the beginning,” says Mikhail Fridman, boss of rival Alpha Bank. Fridman and Potanin were among the top-six Russian bankers called in by president Boris Yeltsin in September for a dressing-down. Yeltsin told them to stop fighting with each other and play by the rules. The others were Vladimir Gusinky of Most Bank, Alexander Smolensky of SBS Agro, Vladimir Vinogradov of Inkombank and Mikhail Khodorkovsky of Menatep.
Outsiders and the old elite
Fridman and Potanin couldn’t be more different in their backgrounds. Fridman is an outsider. He is from Ukraine and studied at the unglamourous Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys before starting a window-cleaning cooperative. With his schoolboyish enthusiasm and rumpled appearance he seems constantly surprised at his exalted position. Potanin, whose father worked in senior state positions, seems used to the high life.
But Potanin and Prokhorov aren’t playboys. They work a 12-hour day and are particularly fond of late-night sessions. Prokhorov, who isn’t married, is noted for this, and senior staff can find themselves holding discussions with him into the early hours. “It’s a kind of illness. It’s not really necessary,” he quips.
Potanin took a gamble when he quit the foreign trade ministry in 1990 to start his trading company, Interros, one of many embracing the new freedoms to import goods. The initial capital was only a few thousand dollars and the main lines were electronic goods such as faxes and photocopiers. Potanin soon realized importing was an overcrowded sector and that he could offer nothing new to the foreign trade organizations he was dealing with. He sensed there was more demand for financial services. He went to open a hard-currency account at IBEC and met Prokhorov, whose financial experience was of vital use in establishing ICFI and later Unexim.
The two partners were undaunted by the idea of starting a bank during a chaotic period when Russia might easily have reverted to state control and restriction. “When I saw the people who were then running banks, often as chief executives and chairmen, even though they had hardly any qualifications, I was sure we could do it,” recalls Prokhorov.
Prokhorov reports that IBEC at that time “didn’t feel very good”. Both IBEC and Soviet foreign trade bank Vneshekonombank were in disarray and ICFI and Unexim were created during the chaos. Using their contacts, Potanin and Prokhorov were able to persuade state-owned companies to act as founding shareholders. Many institutions also transferred their business to the new banks and their presence gave legitimacy to what Potanin and Prokhorov were doing. This is one of the most controversial chapters of the Unexim story because state resources were used in setting up private banks. While critics argue that public property should not have been available for use in this way, others argue that ICFI performed a service by salvaging it.
First to be established, in 1992, was ICFI with state savings bank Sberbank, Russian foreign trade bank Vneshtorgbank, Potanin’s company Interros and IBEC itself acting as initial shareholders. Later the state-owned companies were bought out so that only Sberbank retains a tiny holding.
A Thomson Bankwatch report casts some light on ICFI’s origins. “ICFI was founded as a finance company in February 1992, reportedly using some of the $400 million Soviet holdings at IBEC as founding capital,” it says. “ICFI also inherited some IBEC clients. The saving of Soviet hard-currency holdings by the ICFI-Unexim Bank team in its early days was reportedly highly appreciated by Russia’s leaders who have patronized the banks ever since, to the extent that Interros is now Russia’s most powerful FIG [financial-industrial group].”
Frozen out
The state-owned foreign trade organizations (FTOs) using Vneshekonombank found their accounts frozen as arguments raged over its Soviet-era liabilities, many to western creditors. They desperately needed a new bank to continue in business. As ICFI was not strictly a bank, Unexim was set up and the FTOs became shareholders in the new bank which allowed them to carry on doing business.
“The FTOs wanted to be free of state control and therefore did not want to go to the new Russian foreign trade bank, Vneshtorgbank: they wanted their own bank,” says a Thomson Bankwatch report. “The authorities must have given their blessing to the initiative because the state was a shareholder in the FTOs. Staff and infrastructure came from the former Comecon foreign trade bank, IBEC. Cash-rich FTOs have actively supported the bank’s phenomenal growth with business and capital injections.”
Small wonder then that many observers describe Unexim as “the arm of the state” out of which has grown the giant Interros group. In Russia, there are some clear advantages in establishing a FIG, including tax benefits, but the FIG concept also has the strong backing of Chubais, who is keen on German-style financial-industrial complexes. “Potanin’s strategy is the expression of Chubais’ idea,” says Maxim Shashenkov, who recently left Merrill Lynch to become CEO of Alpha Capital Brokerage. But Russia’s FIGs remain somewhat different from Germany’s more transparent banking and corporate groupings. The Interros structure is opaque. Ownership of key parts of it resides with parent companies whose ultimate shareholders are unknown. “You would have to go back generations [of holding companies] to get to the true owners,” says an observer.
Norilsk Nickel is a good example of the complexity. The Interros group’s 38% stake is owned by a holding company, Svift. Svift appears on a list of 30 shareholders in Interros in an information release given out by Unexim, and is also said by Unexim’s Ryskin to have an important stake in ICFI. A Thompson Bankwatch report lists a company called Sveeft as a 33.32% shareholder in ICFI. Svift is also credited as a Unexim shareholder in a report released in August 1996, but has disappeared from a similar list in the offering circular for the Unexim Eurobond published in July. Who owns Svift? Potanin refuses to say.
He claims this secrecy is necessary. “In Russia it’s not good yet to speak about your assets,” he explains. “There is not the tradition of disclosing the structure of holdings.” Potanin denies that anything illegal takes place. “On the contrary everything is legal,” he says. “Taxes are paid. But it’s not a good thing to demonstrate this in Russia, because the difference between rich people and poor people is very big. I think that until the situation becomes more normal in the country and we have a middle class, it will be very difficult to speak about these things.”
Another reason the Interros structure is kept confidential may be the credit-rating implications. Interros includes some largely moribund companies sorely in need of capital. Were their ownership traceable to Unexim Bank, investors in its debt might feel uncomfortable. A credit analyst working on the Svyazinvest privatization, which Unexim won, commented that if Unexim had guaranteed one proposed deal structure, all the bank’s other guarantees would have become worthless. Another analyst says: “Using normal criteria a bank wouldn’t work with Unexim, the stucture is too opaque. But given their size and status they’re impossible to ignore.”
The official explanation for the way Interros works is that it is not a holding company but a club in which members receive such benefits as management expertise. The Eurobond offering circular states: “Interros AO has no management role or any specific powers over Interros Group members, but acts as a group coordinator and consultant … each Interros Group member operates with separate management and independent funding and profitability. The intra-group liquidity risk to the bank is under the direct control of the first deputy chairman Mr Ryskin and the bank applies the same credit procedures when it extends loans to members of the Interros Group as it does to other potential borrowers. The majority of intra-group loans are provided on commercial terms.”
But if a major company like Norilsk Nickel, which the Unexim group is struggling to turn round, got into major difficulties could the bank pull the plug on its loans? Prokhorov is adamant that it could. “If Norilsk Nickel is dead in one month, for me there is only one thing I need and that is the return of [the Unexim banking group’s] money…I have 200% of collateral on Norilsk loans [in the form of rights to metal exports],” he says.
In fact, there is a positive argument in favour of the kind of connected lending that the FIG structure encourages, but which is normally frowned upon by banking analysts. “At the moment connected lending is a sensible strategy given the dearth of information and a lack of creditworthy borrowers in Russia,” says Jennifer Ray, a vice-president of Salomon Brothers in London who specializes in European banks. “But at some point Unexim and other Russian banks will have to start lending outside their groups if they want to become more profitable and balanced.” In August the largest 10 credits accounted for 44.5% of Unexim’s lending portfolio and the largest 20 made up 62%. The largest exposure detailed in a report by UK bank rating agency IBCA is to the government, once more illustrating Unexim’s close links to Russia’s rulers and also its wider role outside Interros.
In spite of the attempts to portray Interros as a club rather than a holding company, its practical workings are clearly more robust than the official explanation suggests. Potanin is heavily involved in the tricky restructuring of Norilsk Nickel where incumbent management has resisted changes and there are huge welfare and tax burdens. A former chief executive of ICFI, Alexander Khloponin, has been parachuted in to lead the reorganization and another 30 or so staff have either been taken from the bank or recruited by Unexim to help run the show. This hardly sounds like helpful management advice courtesy of a friendly club. But it appears to be paying off: Norilsk is expected to report profits next year.
Similarly, a 34% stake in Sidanko held by Interros Oil is known to be up for sale to a foreign investor and no observer expects this could go ahead without Potanin’s approval. Indeed, the western investors who came into the Svyazinvest deal are there only because they believe Potanin has the ability to sort out management problems. Svyazinvest manages some 85 phone companies across Russia. To boost returns, tariff rises will have to be forced through against the wishes of local interest groups, and practices such as switching into the public network for free, syphoning off cash and transfering assets for less than their market value will have to be stamped out. It’s a tough job and not one a foreign investor could hope to perform. That’s why investors in Svyazinvest were prepared to buy equity in a structure that required them also to purchase debt that, in turn, allowed Unexim to buy additional equity. The message is clear: westerners have the cash, Unexim has the clout.
If the Interros group companies need fixing what about the bank? Fast growth can be a dangerous strategy. Unexim may be the best of its peer group, but Russian banks all suffer from serious problems. In general, they have low profitability, their capital requirements are high, their loan and deposit bases are highly concentrated and they lack a retail base.
Pulling together 1996 figures from various sources, Unexim’s capital-adequacy ratio comes out at a high 19.7%, illustrating the need it feels to bolster itself against turbulent conditions but also an inefficient use of capital by western standards. The bank’s cost-to-income ratio is 44.63%, and staff and other non-interest expenses are increasing faster than inflation, reflecting the bank’s rapid growth. The deposit base is concentrated, with the 10 largest customer deposits accounting for 80%. This is a particular concern since the government has indicated that its deposits, of which Unexim has a chunk, will be distributed differently in future.
Profits, as might be expected in a fast-expanding, capital-hungry institution, have not been exciting. In 1995 there was a loss of Rb27.5 billion ($4.7 million) because of intense competiton, rapid growth and interbank market disruptions. But in 1996 there were profits of Rb328.3 billion. IBCA reports a net income-to-average assets ratio of 2.13%. Assets were Rb22 trillion at the end of June 1997 – a fourfold increase since the end of 1994.
Says the IBCA report: “In 1996 Unexim’s performance ratios compared acceptably with those of a selected peer group of banks, although its profitability was lower than those banks which concentrated very extensively on trading in Russian securities.” This demonstrates Unexim’s long-term goal of deriving the bulk of profits from lending rather than through quick-fixes such as investing in GKOs. It’s the kind of policy consistent with its ambitions to become a Russian Deutsche Bank. Yet many analysts remain sceptical that Unexim has such a future in its grasp. “In Russia you cannot rely on the too-big-to-fail concept because of the political situation,” says Salomon’s Ray. “Banks come in and out of favour.”
The successful placing and good performance of Unexim’s $200 million Eurobond in July, with an additional $50 million placed in September, has helped diversify funding. Prokhorov doesn’t see funding as a major problem. “Western banks are queuing up to lend us money,” he says. Efforts are being made to expand the retail base, and new businesses such as credit cards are being developed.
But progress in consumer banking and international funding will require Unexim to improve its image. This can only be done successfully if the political situation cools. There have been few signs of this happening so far. Moreover the bank’s name was hit by rumour of scandal. The latest problems concern a soon-to-be-published book written by former privatization minister Alfred Kokh, who was charged by rivals with being too friendly to Unexim. A Financial Times article linked the book, and the $100,000 advance paid to its author, to a Swiss company, a former director of which is now an employee of Banque Unexim (Suisse), Unexim’s Swiss subsidiary. Potanin says he is friends with Kokh but he denies any wrongdoing.
Then, in October, Boris Jordan’s visa was cancelled for the second time in 15 months. Close observers suggest this is to do with either past or upcoming privatization auctions: the aim being to spook foreign investors interested in joining Unexim consortia. Rosneft, which includes government stakes in massive Caspian and Siberian projects, is one such company on the block and the battle for it is likely to pitch Unexim against a group controlled by Boris Berezovsky, one of Russia’s richest entrepreneurs, who was allied to the losing side in the Svyazinvest deal. Jordan played a key role in the Svyazinvest transaction by bringing in foreign investors. Both the visa and Kokh book episodes took place after Yeltsin’s appeal to the bankers to stop fighting and play by the rules.
However, the worst accusations came earlier in the year. In July the central bank governor accused Andrei Vavilov, a former deputy finance minister, who has worked for ICFI, of arranging two disbursements that failed to arrive. One was a $275 million transfer to the Moscow regional government, the other a $237 million transfer to the maker of MiG fighter aircraft. Vavilov denied any wrongdoing. The story hit the papers shortly before Unexim launched its Eurobond.
The bank is working hard to improve its image – one of the board’s liveliest meetings, in September, discussed it. “We decided that, due to the information war, the bank is known to everyone in Russia. Our competitors have made us known to everyone,” says Ryskin. Now, he says, the aim is to transform the public’s mildly negative perception to a mildly positive one. The board rejected TV advertising as being too costly, with “a risk of being slotted between Pampers and Tampax”, but radio and newspaper ads are going ahead.
Political threat overplayed
Ryskin believes the political threat to the bank is overplayed. “People have long said the bank was established due to relations with government. They said it was over when Yegor Gaidar left [a former reformist minister], they said the same when Soskovets left [a former deputy prime minister]. Now people think if Chubais leaves it’s the end.”
Now Unexim is leading its own push for a level playing field in finance, for respecting the rules and for even-handed treatment of investors, especially minorities. Cynics say this is because it has now reached a size where it can win by the rules, and that there have been plenty of cases of its abusing investors’ rights.
One example was the Renaissance direct investment fund Sputnik, which held a stake in Sidanko until, say market sources, Potanin asked for it to be sold back to him. Investors didn’t lose money because they had already made profits on Sidanko stock (they were also allowed back into Sidanko later, although by that time the share price had risen). Still, one investor was so incensed at the violation of a basic investment fund principle that he refused to go into the Unexim consortium bidding for Svyazinvest.
“Our direct investment fund benefits from the cross-pollination with a full-service investment bank. The fund benefits from it,” is all Renaissance’s managing director of investment banking, Leonid Rozhetskin, will say. Renaissance’s Jordan says he retains ultimate control of the fund’s investment strategy and points out that investors gained when they went back into Sidanko because the ratio of oil reserves per share had meanwhile risen.
Rozhetskin provides an example of how Unexim is starting to treat minority investors better. He explains that majority shareholder Svift recently took Renaissance’s advice to scrap a rights issue for Norilsk Nickel that was mispriced and would have diluted the stake of preferred shareholders who were excluded from the issue. “Irrespective of what the law says, it would have been wrong from the perspective of international shareholders to exclude preferred shareholders, especially from an issue that was below market price,” he says.
But the big break with the past has been the Svyazinvest deal, in which Unexim and its partners outbid the rival Most-led group by $165 million. Svyazinvest, it was widely believed, had been earmarked for Berezovsky and his allies including Gusinky and on this occasion Fridman. One banker even refused to work on the Unexim deal until Potanin told him directly that Unexim’s bid was serious.
In the event, Svyazinvest was sold to the highest bidder. This offers some reason to hope that future auctions may be conducted as fairly. If so, the professionals at Unexim are well placed to further widen their lead over rivals. Unexim looks set to become the establishment bank of Russia, looking down on unruly rivals who don’t play by a gentleman’s code. One day, its buccaneering beginnings will be retold as a charming period piece.
