Austrian bank Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) is finding hard to divest from the Russian market after a local court froze its shares and its chances of selling the Russian unit, as part of a bigger war of attrition between the West and Russia.
RBI is the biggest Western bank present in Russia today and has been under pressure to exit the country ever since the war in Ukraine began in 2022. Russia is currently accounting for almost half of RBI’s profits in the first months of 2024 as fees on payments abroad went up.
Despite the relevance in the group’s profit, RBI was willing to leave but finds itself unable to after a court decision. The Russian court froze the sale after a claim by Russian investment holding Rasperia against Austrian construction group Strabag and the Russian unit of RBI.
RBI was planning on acquiring a stake in Strabag that should be controlled by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, currently under Western sanctions. He denies having shares in Strabag, that allegedly are held by Rasperia. A Russian company called Iliadis was supposedly in charge of acquiring Deripaska’s frozen shares in Rasperie, according to a May note of the US Treasury.
RBI wanted to acquire a stake in Strabag as a way to unlock frozen funds currently in Russia. It decided during this year to drop a possible acquisition of Strabag, under pressure from the US.
According to a spokesperson of Raiffeisen, the block of the sale will not hamper their bank operations in Russia, nor their effort to reduce their Russian business, something that the European Central Bank has been pushing them on, adding that “we can still appoint management and give instructions to the Russians but we cannot sell the bank.” RBI will also seek to reverse the court decision.
Raiffeisen has around 2,600 corporate customers, 4 million local account holders and a 10,000 staff in Russia. According to one source listened by Reuters, Russian authorities told RBI that they want the bank to remain in Russia because it allows for international payments and has thus became essential for millions of Russian who want to send money abroad.
