UPDATE2: Cbank: Liabilities of Russia’s 27th bank put on freeze for 3 mths

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MOSCOW, Jul 10 (PRIME) -- The central bank has introduced a 3-month moratorium on creditors’ demands of Jugra Bank, Russia’s 27th largest by assets, and appointed the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) as interim administration for six months, the regulator said in a statement on Monday.

“The authority of the shareholders connected with their participation in the capital as well as the authority of management of PJSS Bank Jugra is suspended for the period of the temporary administration’s activity,” the statement said.

Central Bank Deputy Chairman Vasily Pozdyshev said the regulator believes that Bank Jugra, whose assets stand at 323.9 billion rubles, has been providing misleading reports for several months and suspects the bank of asset withdrawal and manipulations with deposits.

“The introduction of the interim administration is aimed at revealing the real financial situation of the credit organization – valuation of its assets and liabilities to make a further decision on its fate. Why did we consider it necessary to do this? Because over the last few months we have signs that reports provided to us by the bank are not trustworthy,” he said.

“We also have signs of possible asset stripping and possible manipulations with deposits.”

The central bank has estimated manipulations with the bank’s deposits at almost 2 billion rubles, Pozdyshev said.

“After the bank was given a restriction on attracting depositors’ funds, the bank started making individual investors shareholders, giving them one share in order to circumvent the restriction,” he said. “The scale of this restriction is not big, they are almost 2 billion rubles, less than 2 billion rubles. We considered this a serious enough call, and this was one of the reasons to introduce the interim administration.”

The central bank also believes that the major part of the bank’s loan portfolio was used to finance business of the bank’s owner, Alexei Khotin. is the key shareholder of Bank Jugra,.

The bank’s offices will work from 10 am to 12 am only to provide consultations, it said on its web site.

The DIA said that it will start paying deposits no later than from July 24 and will choose banks-agents to that end no later than on July 17.

Pozdyshev also said that the regulator has applied to law enforcement agencies in connection with operations of Bank Jugra.

(60.3792 rubles – U.S. $1)

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