U.S. based private equity firm, TPG, has taken steps to secure its USD100 million investment into Russian VTB bank. TPG will head a committee that will help VTB develop growth strategies that do not involve acquisitions. This change comes after VTB acquired a 47% share in the Bank of Moscow, with intent to acquire 100%, only to find out after the deal that one-third of all loans on the books were bad. VTB had to seek bailout from the national bank to survive this transaction.
VTB Group (www.vtb.com)
VTB Group is a Russia based financial group. By offering financial services through its subsidiaries in over 20 countries in Russia, the CIS, West Europe, Asia and Africa the company became the second largest financial group in Russia regarding its assets and customer accounts.
VTB Bank (former Vneshtorgbank), the very heart of the VTB Group, has been established in Moscow in 1990 as a state initiative of the RSFSR . VTB Group deals with investments via VTB Capital, their investments in innovative and high-technology companies are one of the priority development lines of VTB Group’s investment business. The main profile of VTB Bank is retail and corporate banking.
TPG Capital (www.tpg.com)
Established in 1992, TPG Capital is a global private investment firm with more than USD 40 billion in assets. The firm invests across a wide variety of sectors in locations all over the world, preferring to tailor individual investments to the specific needs of the company in question.
A typical investment horizon is five years, although TPG has been known to hold on to some particularly attractive investments for longer periods of time.
29/08/2011
Central & Eastern Europe, Financial Services, Private Equity News, Russia