PRESS: UniCredit swaps Ukraine’s Ukrsotsbank for 10% in Russia’s Alfa

MOSCOW, Jan 13 (PRIME) -- Italy’s UniCredit Group agreed with ABH Holdings S.A., the parent company of Russia’s Alfa-Group, on an asset swap, and will exchange Ukraine’s Ukrsotsbank for 9.9% in ABH Holdings, Vedomosti business daily reported Wednesday.

The deal is expected to be approved and closed in 2016. No documents on a purchase of Ukrsotsbank have been filed to Ukraine’s central bank so far, a representative for the regulator told Vedomosti.

UniCredit will receive a position in ABH Holdings’ board of directors, and the deal will allow the Italian banking group to initiate an initial public offering of ABH Holdings, while the latter receives the right to buy back UniCredit’s stake in five years, the group said as cited by the business daily.

S&P analyst Anastasiya Tyrdyeva told Vedomosti that it is very hard to value the 9.9% stake in ABH Holdings, as the company does not disclose financial reports. The bulk of its business is consolidated in Cyprus-based ABH Financial with assets worth U.S. $43.6 billion and a capital of $4.3 billion as of late 2014, she said.

Alexander Lukanov, a president of Alfa-Bank Ukraine, said in an interview to Web portal liga.net that it would be wrong to value the deal, as it includes a large amount of conditions and covenants. “Plus it also includes lots of options for sales and purchases, which may end up with closer cooperation of the two banking groups,” Vedomosti quoted him as saying.

UniCredit and Alfa-Bank did not provide any comments on the matter.

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