To further limit its operations in Russia and extract frozen profits from the sanctioned country, Raiffeisen Bank International planned a controversial deal with Strabag. They wanted to buy 24.1 percent of the shares in the Austrian construction group Strabag from an unapproved Russian investor. But the plan has now fallen apart.
The RBI announced in December that it wanted to acquire 28.5 million shares in Strabag, worth more than one billion euros, through its Russian subsidiary. The owner of the block of shares was Russia’s MKAO Rasperia Trading, which was controlled by sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Recently, Rasperia went to a Russian investor called Iliadis, which the bank says has not been sanctioned.
Plans scrapped due to risk of sanctions
Under RBI’s original, now rejected plan, the shares would be acquired by the Russian subsidiary and then transferred as dividend in kind to the parent company in Vienna.
The possible sanction risks were probably decisive. “During recent discussions with the relevant authorities, Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) was unable to obtain the necessary comfort to execute the planned transaction. “Out of an abundance of caution, the bank has decided to abandon the transaction,” the group announced on Wednesday. In fact, the pressure from the US had become enormous recently.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
