SMP Bank consolidates assets for PSB

Controlled by the Rotenberg brothers, SMP Bank became the sole owner of the insurance company of the same name. These changes may be one of the stages in preparation for the future merger of the SMP Bank group with PSB, which does not have its own insurance company, Kommersant sources say. At the same time, the creation of an insurer specifically for the military and security forces is not excluded, but in the current situation this is fraught with great risks, experts point out.

SMP Bank consolidated 100% of the shares of SMP Insurance, a member of the banking group. This follows from the SPARK data. First, SMP-Bank received the share of Mosoblbank (91.3%), which is undergoing reorganization. These changes took place on September 1, follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. Subsequently, on September 30, SMP-Bank also consolidated the shares of minority shareholders – the brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg (3.5% each) and Elena Ruzyak (1.7%). SMP-Bank received Mosoblbank for financial rehabilitation in 2014. At the end of July 2016, a controlling stake in the insurance company was transferred to the bank being rehabilitated, before that the Rotenberg brothers owned 40% of the shares, the remaining 20% ​​were owned by Elena Ruzyak.

According to a Kommersant source, the insurance company is currently cooperating with both SMP Bank and Promsvyazbank (PSB). The company is quite working, although compared to the business of SMP Bank, it is small, he believes. The changes may be part of the deal being discussed to join SMP Bank to PSB, which currently does not have an insurance business, Kommersant’s interlocutors in the financial market admit (see “Kommersant” dated June 23).

Consolidation of minority shares significantly simplifies the deal structure for the parties.

“In fact, a potential buyer is offered a single lot with a transparent and finite list of beneficiaries. This relieves the buyer of the need to further negotiate with minority shareholders on the value of their shares in the far from core business of the SMP,” explains Sergey Novikov, partner at the consulting firm GRM.

At the same time, the insurance company has a fairly large equity capital – 2.5 billion rubles, which may indicate that the company is an investment asset for the owners. Sergei Novikov in this case draws attention to two aspects. First, a high level of equity capital adequacy significantly increases the stability of the company, which positively affects its value. Secondly, the capital of the company is mainly a source of fixed assets and liquid assets in the form of funds in the accounts.

However, the mere appearance of an insurance company within the perimeter of the PSB (the bank itself works only with third-party insurance companies) will not have a noticeable impact on its business, since SMP Insurance has a very modest market position, says Expert RA Banking Ratings Senior Director » Vladimir Teterin. “If we talk about insurance as a promising direction, then here, taking into account the scale of the PSB itself, there is certainly a very large potential for growth, which can be realized if the bank’s lending activity grows, mainly in terms of the retail portfolio,” he thinks.

In general, the existence of an insurance business line allows diversifying operating income, as well as making the strategy for attracting and investing funds more flexible, adds Valery Piven, Senior Director, Head of the Financial Institutions Ratings Group at ACRA.

Kommersant’s interlocutor in the insurance market admits that the PSB may want to create an insurer specifically for the military and security forces, but in the current situation this is fraught with great risks. Now the issue of insurance for military personnel is extremely acute, he explains, in most of the existing programs, military operations are exceptions to insurance coverage.

SMP Bank and PSB did not respond to requests from Kommersant.

Olga Sherunkova, Maxim Builov, Yulia Poslavskaya