Russia Tycoons to Unload Alfa-Bank Stake to Escape Sanctions
- Fridman, Aven hope that sale would help ease EU restrictions
- Billionaires to sell stakes to partner who’s not sanctioned
An Alfa Bank branch in Moscow.
Source: Bloomberg
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Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven have reached a deal to offload their stakes in Alfa-Bank, the country’s biggest privately owned lender, as they seek to ease European sanctions.
Under the agreement, which is subject to regulatory approval, the two would sell their stakes to longtime partner Andrei Kosogov, who hasn’t been sanctioned, for 178 billion rubles ($2.3 billion), according to people familiar with the situation. It wasn’t immediately clear where Kosogov, a lower-profile executive who had the smallest stake in the bank before the other partners were sanctioned amid the war, would get the money.