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RBS Moves In through ABN Amro
The Royal Bank of Scotland, the second-largest British bank and one of the ten largest in the world, has announced that it is entering the Russian market. It will operate in Russian through ABN Amro, the Dutch bank it bought 38.3 percent of a year ago. It will engage in both investment and retail banking. Initially, RBS planned to begin operations in Russia from scratch. It searched for managers through an employment agency and signed an agreement with Renaissance Capital investment company on cooperation on the Russian investment market. Those plans were not realized, however.
RBS received £7.7 billion in net profit in 2007 (up 18 percent). Its assets as of December 31, 2007, amounted to £1.9 trillion. Its market capitalization yesterday was $81.5 billion. ABN Amro opened an office in Moscow in 1978 and it received a general license for banking operations from the Central Bank in 1993. It was ranked 34th in Dengi financial weekly’s ranking of Russian banks by its own capital (10.7 billion rubles) on January 1 of this year. It net profit was 53.6 billion rubles. It has branches in St. Petersburg and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
Barclay’s, Britain’s third-largest bank, bought 100 percent of Russian Expobank in March of this year.
In spite of ABN Amro’s long history in Russia, RBS plans to develop its business in Russia under its own name. The 24 other European subdivisions of ABN Amro that RBS has received will also be renamed. It is not yet known when those changes will be made. Observers note that RBS is little known in Russia in comparison with ABN Amro.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 21, 2008
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