RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin gave approval on Monday (Feb 19) for HSBC to sell its Russian unit to privately-owned Expobank, paving the way for the British lender to extricate itself from the Russian market after months of negotiations.
HSBC said in June 2022 that it had agreed to sell a 100 per cent stake in the unit, HSBC Bank (RR), to Expobank. Moscow has steadily tightened restrictions on foreign asset sales since then, with banks requiring Putin’s approval for any deal.
HSBC and Expobank did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
Monday’s order said it was allowing Expobank to acquire 100 per cent of the unit, owned by HSBC Europe.
The order cited an Aug 5, 2022 decree signed by Putin, which banned investors from “unfriendly” countries – those that have sanctioned Russia over its actions in Ukraine – from selling shares in key energy projects and banks. That decree gave Putin the power to issue special waivers in certain cases for deals to go ahead.
Expobank was sanctioned by the US in December, as part of wide-ranging restrictions aimed at throttling Moscow’s energy and financial sectors in the wake of Russia despatching its army to Ukraine in February 2022.
The US Treasury said in December it was imposing sanctions on Expobank “for operating or having operated in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy”. REUTERS
