Who owns Alfa Bank? Alpha group What is alpha group

Alfa Bank is today one of the largest and most famous Russian banks, dating back to 1991, when the Central Bank issued a license to carry out banking operations.

On next year The first customer service branch was opened in Moscow. At the moment, branches and branches of the bank, totaling more than a hundred, can be found not only in Russia, but also in many foreign countries.

The bank's activities are aimed at both legal entities and individuals; the Internet banking system is being widely implemented.

Alfa Bank takes an active part in social life society, collaborating with such charitable foundations as Life Line and the World Wildlife Fund. The bank can also often be found among the sponsors and partners of various concerts and festivals.

Bank owners

The legal form of the bank is a joint stock company, with two main shareholders. 99.89% of the bank's shares are owned by AB Holding joint-stock company, and the remaining 0.11% is owned by Alfa Capital Holdings (Cyprus) Limited.

According to the law on information disclosure, the bank is obliged to publish information about the persons controlling it, or those who have significant influence, therefore information about shareholders is publicly available on the official website.

Each of them will be discussed in more detail below.

AB Holding JSC

AB Holding was registered in Moscow, which was announced in 2004 in State Register legal entities (Unified State Register of Legal Entities) a corresponding entry was made. The only shareholder who owns 100% of the shares of this company is ABH Financial Limited (ABC Financial Limited), registered in Cyprus and owning 80.1% of the shares of the second owner of Alfa Bank - Alfa Capital Holdings (Cyprus) Limited.

Alpha Capital Holdings (Cyprus) Limited

This company, established in Cyprus in 1996, also has two shareholders, owning 80.1% and 19.9% ​​of the shares respectively. As mentioned above, the controlling stake is held by ABH Financial Limited, and Alfa Bank JSC itself owns 19.9% ​​of the shares.

ABH Financial Limited

The company, which is the indirect owner of Alfa Bank, is located in Cyprus, as is its subsidiary, Alfa Capital Holdings. The company's shares are divided between two shareholders. A controlling stake of 97.4% of shares is owned by ABH Holdings S.A., and the remaining 2.6% belongs to Alfa Bank itself.

ABH Holdings S.A. (ABC Holdings S.A.)

The owner of the entire lower structure, which includes the bank itself, its shareholders and the company that owns the bank’s shareholders, ABH Holdings S.A. registered in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Its shares are divided among several individuals and legal entities.

• 32.9% of shares belong to Mikhail Fridman, Russian billionaire and an entrepreneur who, according to Forbes, ranked second among billionaire entrepreneurs in 2015. Friedman was at the origins of the founding of Alfa Bank, and has been on the board of directors since 1991. In addition to managing the bank, he sat on the boards of directors of such enterprises as ORT, Oil Company SIDANCO and Trading House Perekrestok. Currently he is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of LetterOne Holdings and the Supervisory Board of Alfa Group.
• 21% of the shares are owned by German Khan, who ranks tenth in the same ranking of the richest businessmen. In the early nineties, Khan was the head of wholesale trade at the Alfa-Eco company, and later was the executive director of the TNK fuel company. Today, like Fridman, he is a member of the board of directors of LetterOne Holdings and the supervisory board of Alfa Group.
• 16.3% belongs to Alexey Kuzmichev, who is in fifteenth place in the Forbes ranking. Together with the two above-mentioned shareholders, Kuzmichev participated in the creation of the future Alfa Group in the late eighties and early nineties, thanks to him the Alfa-Eco company appeared, which he headed until the late nineties. In 2005, the company was renamed A1, in whose management Kuzmichev remained. Today he holds a seat on the board of directors of LetterOne Holdings and the supervisory board of Alfa Group.
• The owner of 12.4% of the shares is Petr Aven, whose fortune Forbes estimates at $4.6 billion (19th place in the ranking). In 1991, Aven was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR; later, from 1993 to 2011, he served as president of Alfa Bank. Currently holds the chairman's chair on the board of directors of the Alfa-Bank consortium.
• 3.7% of the shares are owned by Andrei Kosogov, who occupies 61st place in the Forbes ranking and has a fortune of $1.2 billion. Kosogov is also one of the founders of the group, in the nineties he headed the bank's subsidiaries: Alfa Capital CJSC and Alfa Capital Brok CJSC. Since 1998, he was deputy chairman of the board at the bank, left his post in 2005, and from 2005 to 2009 he chaired the Supervisory Board of Alfa-Bank (Ukraine). Today he participates in meetings of the board of directors of LetterOne Holdings and the supervisory board of Alfa Group.

In addition to individuals, shares of ABH Holdings S.A. also owned by two legal entities.

• 9.9% of shares are owned by UniCredit S.p.A., the Italian banking group UniCredit, 100% of whose shares are publicly available on the financial market.
• 3.9% of the shares are owned by The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research, a charitable trust established under the laws of the Cayman Islands. All shares of the trust are transferred to trust management in favor of organizations engaged in charitable activities

To sum up this story about the Alfa Bank ownership scheme, we can say that although the management scheme seems complex and confusing at first glance, there are only seven final ones.

1. These are the four founders of the Alpha group: M. Friedman, G. Khan, A. Kuzmichev and A. Kosogov, as well as the president of the bank P. Aven.
2. The remaining stake is divided between the Italian banking group UniCredit and a charitable trust engaged in cancer research, information about the owners of which is not publicly available.

, Alexey Kuzmichev, German Khan

Alfa Group Consortium- one of the largest financial and industrial groups in Russia. The headquarters is located in Moscow.

Story

Alfa Group has often participated in corporate wars throughout its history, in particular:

Owners and management

The parent structure of the consortium is Gibraltar-based CTF Holdings Ltd., which controls the assets of Alfa Group through a chain of offshore companies. At the same time, more than 40% of CTF Holdings belongs to Mikhail Fridman, and large blocks of shares also belong to the executive director of TNK-BP German Khan and the chairman of the board of directors of A1 Group Alexey Kuzmichev.

Activity

Alfa Group controls the following assets:

• A1 (until 2005 it was called Alfa-Eco) is an investment company that was founded in 1989 as the first and main structure of the consortium. It operates as an independent and main investment division of the group; over its history it has implemented more than 30 large-scale projects in the Russian Federation and the CIS, many of which became part of the parent company. Since 2009, she began working with Alfa Bank’s troubled assets worth more than $1 billion, received after debt restructuring, also being interested in undervalued non-public assets with various risks (corporate, financial, legal, administrative). Owns the car dealer “Independence” (50%), the cinema chains “Kronverk Cinema” and “Formula Kino” (55.66%), the IT company “Sistematika”, the largest supermarket chain in Belarus “BelMarket”, etc. and a turkey meat producer "Eurodon" (40%).
• Alfa Capital Partners is a private equity investment company. Manages three funds that invest money from private clients.
• telecommunications company Altimo (owns 24.998% in VimpelCom Ltd., which controls Vimpel Communications, Kyivstar, Wind Telecom);
• federal network of multidisciplinary medical centers"Alpha Health Center";
• Management company "Alfa Capital";
• Venture fund "Russian Technologies";
• Rosvodokanal group.

The group also owns shares in the following companies:

The group's consolidated revenue in 2010 according to IFRS amounted to $11.9 billion (in 2009 - $9.2 billion), net profit- $2.8 billion ($3.3 billion).

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Excerpt characterizing Alfa Group

Structure, positions, management

Currently, the core of the consortium consists of five companies of the so-called “first level”: Alfa Bank, check investment fund Alfa Capital and the same name Management Company, trading company "Alfa-Eco", real estate and development company "Alfa-Estate", art trading company "Alfa-Art".
Nuclear companies official version consortium, both formally and actually independent of each other. The main type of relationship between them is coordination of activities, ensured through informal contacts between leaders.
The second level is affiliated companies nuclear companies of the group. They enter the group only if it is possible to establish complete control over them.
Industrial component of the consortium until the summer of 1997. was represented by several dozen enterprises, controlled mainly by the Alfa-Eco and Alfa-Capital companies (through the ownership of large blocks of shares, a system of contracts, or other means). Most of these enterprises belong to the food (sugar factories and the largest tea-packing factories in Russia), cement, glass, chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The degree of control of the nuclear companies of the consortium over “their” enterprises and participation in their management varies greatly among different enterprises. The consortium's activity is most widely known in the cement and sugar industries, for work with which special structures "Alpha Sugar" and "Alpha Cement" were created.
Summer 1997 Alfa Group acquired 40% of the shares of the Tyumen Oil Company (TNK) at an investment competition, the real economic significance and value of which many times exceeds all the assets the group previously had. (And this forces us, at least, not to reject out of hand the hypothesis that in the case of a TNC it is not an independent strategic investor, but either a participant in an unpublicized consortium, or even just an intermediary.)
That same summer, the group participated in an auction for the sale of a 25% stake in Svyazinvest and was defeated. However, it has already announced its intention to participate in the auction for the next block of shares, which will take place in 1998. The seriousness of Alfa Group's intentions in the telecommunications business is also evidenced by the fact that even before the announcement of the results of the Svyazinvest tender, Alfa Capital announced its intention to participate in the privatization of Ukrtelecom.
In August-September 1997, according to some sources, Alfa Capital aggressively purchased shares from small holders of Rybinsk Motors JSC (simultaneously with ONEXIM Bank). Observers explained this as an attempt to establish control over one of the three largest aircraft engine plants in Russia and associated it with the possible sale of a 37 percent state stake in this joint-stock company in the near future.
The main governing body of the consortium is the board of directors, which includes the top managers of nuclear companies and some other persons responsible for the functional areas of the entire group. For the spring of 1996. it included: P. Aven - President of Alfa Bank, L. Vid - Chairman of the Board of Alfa Bank, G. Khan - President of Alfa-Eco, A. Fain - CEO"Alfa-Eco", A. Kosogov - General Director of "Alfa Capital", B. Kiperman - General Director of "Alfa Estate", as well as M. Bezelyansky and A. Shelukhin.
The undisputed and sole leader of the Alfa Group Consortium is M. Friedman. He holds the positions of chairman of the boards of directors of the entire consortium, as well as Alfa Bank.
M. Friedman is one of the few leaders of Russian business who for a long time preferred to manage his “empire” from the shadows (at the same time, his real influence in the consortium was known, and he did not hide it). He very rarely appeared at public events, did not appear in the press, did not participate in any socio-political initiatives of entrepreneurs, and did not hold any public positions. M. Friedman began to appear in the public space only in 1996. At the same time, his entry into the public arena was quite loud (appearing at the foundation stone of a synagogue on Poklonnaya Gora, occupying leadership positions in Jewish public organizations) and into politics (one of the signatories of the statement “Breaking the Deadlock”). As a result, he immediately became one of the most politically influential Russian businessmen.
The center of the Alfa Group Consortium today, without a doubt, is Alfa Bank. (Although, according to the official version of the consortium, the bank treats its other members in the same way as its other clients.) The two other most important structures are, on our opinion, “Alfa-Eco” (in the beginning it was the main one) and “Alfa-Capital”.

Alfa Bank

Created in 1991 At the beginning of 1994 appears for the first time in the list of the hundred largest banks in Russia at once in 31st place. Since then, it has been constantly improving its position on this list, rising to 11th place in four years. According to the magazine "Expert", in 1994. it was one of the fastest growing banks in Russia, then became less dynamic. Constantly included in the group of banks of the highest reliability (category LA1).
Alfa Bank characterizes itself as a universal commercial bank, not controlled by other consortium members.
For a long time, Alfa Bank occupied a leading position in the country in private transactions with external debts former USSR. According to P. Aven, success in this direction is determined by the fact that the bank employs a powerful group of specialists from Sovfintrade - “a structure specially created by Vnesheconombank of the USSR for trading in securities.” (Recall that another part of Sovfintrade became one of Gazprom’s subsidiary banks.) In 1997. Alfa Bank took part in the placement of Eurobonds of the governments of Russia and Moscow.
Alfa Bank also works with regional authorities. In 1996 he became the organizer and guarantor of attracting a syndicated loan from a consortium of German banks in the amount of $300 million to the Komi Republic. for financing investment projects on its territory. At the beginning of 1997 Articles appeared in the press about the contradictions between the republican government and the bank and that its services could be refused. In our opinion, such contradictions, as well as the use of the media to put pressure on a partner, are quite natural: the republican government is most interested in lending to its projects, and the bank is the most reliable and profitable.
Alfa Bank's increased regional activity occurred in the summer-autumn of 1997. During this period, he signed an agreement with the administrations of three key regions: St. Petersburg (and at the same time opened its branch there), Tatarstan and Nizhny Novgorod region(implying, in particular, joint work to attract investment in the region’s industry). During the same period, Alfa Bank won a tender for the right to become authorized bank Leningrad region (among other largest Moscow banks).
Alfa-Bank not only signed an agreement with the government of Tatarstan on organizing the placement of republican Eurobonds, but also agreed to open under its guarantees line of credit at 300 billion rubles. KAMAZ for replenishment working capital. The allocation of such a large loan to a “dormant” enterprise indicates either close contacts between the bank and the region, or at least very serious intentions.

"Alfa-Eco" and "Alfa-Capital"

Alfa-Eco was one of the largest Russian trading companies from the very beginning. Specializes in wholesale trade of tea, sugar, oil and petroleum products, alcoholic drinks. In particular, it was one of the first three Russian private companies that began to be involved by the government in oil supplies under interstate agreements (the most famous was the oil-sugar contract with Cuba, in which Alfa-Eco participated along with trading house Menatep-Impex).
Currently, Alfa-Eco's position as an oil trader has weakened, and the near future does not promise any improvement. (However, the same applies to most other oil traders who are not oil producers or are not part of the structures of vertically integrated oil companies.) At the same time, it is obvious that its position in the non-trading sphere is strengthening. This is evidenced, in particular, by the fact that it is the top management of Alfa-Eco that is now busy unraveling the situation with TNCs, and in a favorable situation, it is they who will manage its financial affairs.
The name "Alfa Capital" is used both by the check investment fund and the financial company managing its assets.
The check investment fund Alfa Capital was one of the largest. It has collected 2 million vouchers and has 1.1 million shareholders. (Only three CHIFs were significantly larger - the First Voucher Fund, Moscow Real Estate and LUKoil Fund.) In 1993-94. many experts argued that the block of shares of industrial enterprises collected by this CHIF was selected most competently and looked the most promising. However, as far as we know, he did not pay significant dividends to his shareholders either then or later. We also know nothing about plans for its transformation.
Financial company "Alfa Capital" is one of the oldest and most active operators in the Russian financial and stock markets. In the spring of 1997 There have been reports that she plans to transform into investment bank and at the same time separate a number of its specialized divisions into independent companies, including those for managing the assets of the CHIF of the same name. As of the fall of 1997, according to a number of experts, we can already talk about the Alfa Capital group of companies.

Tyumen Oil Company

Tyumen Oil Company is a vertically integrated oil holding. The main value of TNK is its subsidiary Nizhnevartovskneftegaz, which is one of the largest Russian oil producers and owns the unique Samotlor field. The refining (Ryazan Refinery) and marketing subsidiaries are much less powerful, are inconveniently located and do not represent significant value.
TNK is one of the weakest Russian companies. Integration in it was formal, the management of subsidiaries was nominal, and financial position Nizhnevartovskneftegaz worsened every year. In particular, he is constantly on the list of the largest tax evaders. Therefore, the privatization of TNK and its transfer to the control of a powerful financial group seemed to the state the only means of restoring controllability in the company and giving economic meaning to its activities. (By analogy with the positively assessed experience of the Menatep-YUKOS and ONEXIM-SIDANCO alliances.) And for the owner of the TNK, the long-term benefits from owning Samotlor outweighed any current losses and problems.
As an alternative to the privatization of TNK, the option of merging it with the Central Oil Company, which has a large Moscow refinery and does not have any production capacity, was considered. This unification was supposed to take place under the patronage of the Moscow government and the administration of the Tyumen region and was lobbied by them.
Summer 1997 40% of the shares of the Tyumen Oil Company were put up for investment competition. At the same time, the Russian Government did everything in its power to help Alfa Group become the winner of this competition. True, the amount that the winner must pay for the purchased stake, compared to the prices of previously sold oil companies, was unprecedentedly large - over $800 million.
However, even before the competition, the consortium had developed an acute conflict relationship with the management of Nizhnevartovskneftegaz and its influential general director V. Paliy. Currently, the management of Alfa-Eco and the TNK management appointed by them are spending their main efforts on establishing their control over Nizhnevartovskneftegaz, but whether they will be successful is not yet clear. (At the same time, the federal government is obviously trying to help them with this by initiating bankruptcy proceedings for the oil producing enterprise.)
Therefore, today it is not yet clear what role the consortium will play in relation to the Tyumen Oil Company. So far, the entire range of options is theoretically possible - from a full-fledged owner and strategic partner (like Menatep - Rosprom and YUKOS) to a temporary intermediary in case of a forced return to the already mentioned option of merging the Tyumen and Central Oil Companies.

Relations with the state

The relationship between the Alpha Group consortium and the state developed along a clearly defined sine wave.
According to many experts, in the first period of its activity, Alfa Bank was under the special patronage of Gaidar’s team. Alfa-Eco also enjoyed the obvious favor of the government. This, in particular, is evidenced by her appointment in 1994. one of the two executors of the oil-sugar deal with Cuba.
In 1995-96 Relations between the Alpha Group and the authorities were apparently quite tense. On the surface this manifested itself in at least two points.
At the end of 1995 the group lost the loans-for-shares auctions, and according to its own statements, was forced out of them. As a result, together with Inkombank and Russian Credit, Alfa Bank formed an “opposition” not only to the winners (ONEXIM, Menatep, SBS), but also to the government, declaring the illegality of the auction procedure and demanding the cancellation of their results. The controversy reached such intensity that the banks put forward a clearly politically incorrect (albeit equally clearly unrealizable) threat to collapse the GKO market.
And in January 1997 the author of the idea of ​​loans-for-shares auctions, V. Potanin, who was at that time the first deputy chairman of the government, tried to make a counter move. When developing the list of authorized government banks, he did not include Alfa Bank in the group of agent banks (i.e., the “most authorized” banks that, without a special decision, can carry out any instructions from government departments). Non-inclusion was explained by the bank's failure to comply with the formal requirements established by the commission.
But that same winter, relations between the consortium and the state again began to develop upward. Already in February, the same V. Potanin announced the inclusion of Alfa Bank (as well as MOST Bank and Unicombank) among the agent banks with the condition that they would bring their indicators into line with the established selection criteria by July 1, 1997.
In the spring of 1997 The government demonstrated its confidence in Alfa Bank by relying on it, along with Agroprombank, to create new system financing Agriculture. Alfa Bank became the government agent for servicing special federal fund lending to agriculture (he was instructed to distribute 900 billion rubles in loans). And although, according to press reports, both during the sowing and harvesting campaigns he had conflicts with the Ministry of Agriculture, the claims against him were less than against Agroprombank and its owner SBS-Agro.
Summer 1997 Alfa Bank signed a cooperation agreement with the Federal Road Service and became its financial agent for resolving the non-payment crisis, restructuring and repaying mutual debt between the service, road funds and the budget. The scale of the opened field of activity is evidenced by the fact that on May 1, 1997. total debt Federal Road Fund amounted to 3.4 trillion rubles. It is also expected that Alfa Bank will become a manager for the placement of external loans of the Federal Road Service.
The degree of support that the government provided to the consortium during its already mentioned acquisition of a 40 percent stake in the Tyumen Oil Company is eloquently illustrated by the following three points. Firstly, for the first time, Russian authorities supported a hostile takeover of a major oil company - the hostile relationship between the group and the management of Nizhnevartovskneftegaz was well known. Secondly, the government ignored the position of the Prosecutor General's Office, which demanded that the competition be postponed, and pressure was exerted on the judicial authorities of the Tyumen region, forcing the latter to withdraw their objections to its holding in deadlines. Thirdly, the Moscow mayor's proposal to merge TNK and the Central Oil Company before their privatization was rejected.
And finally, M. Friedman’s participation in the September meeting of the president with six “prominent bankers” (to which the heads of banks larger than Alfa Bank, “St. Petersburg”, Mosbusinessbank, “were not invited,” Russian loan"), as well as the fact that he accompanied A. Chubais on a very significant visit to London in October, clearly indicates that the authorities have firmly included Alfa Group among the financial and industrial conglomerates of the highest national importance.
As for the defeat of Alfa Bank and its partners at the investment competition for the sale of a blocking stake in Svyazinvest, it, in our opinion, says absolutely nothing about the real relationship between Alfa Group and the state. It’s just that Alfa Bank and MOST Bank, for all their size, do not yet have sufficient “power” to act as strategic financial partners for industrial enterprises of national scale and significance. (It is no coincidence that back in the spring of 1997 it was believed that these banks would participate in this auction not as opponents, but as partners of ONEXIM.)
There is also a long-term personal union between the Alpha Group and the authorities. In 1993 The former minister of foreign economic relations in Gaidar's government, P. Aven, became the president of the bank. (When moving to Alfa Bank, he, in his words, “received 10% of its shares, transferring to him in return 50% of the shares of his private company FinPA.”) And it was with his arrival that the period of the bank’s most rapid growth began.
In 1995 Another major Soviet-Russian official, L. Vid, was appointed to the post of chairman of the bank's board - the former deputy chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee and the former (for a relatively short time) head of the executive committee of the "Our Home is Russia" movement. And finally, in the fall of 1997. The former head of the press center of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, A. Sitnin, took over the position of vice president of the consortium.
Alfa Group was perhaps the first in Russia to master the practice of inviting not only major government officials, but also “iconic figures” to leadership positions in business. So, back in 1992. A. Leonov, one of the most famous Soviet cosmonauts and leaders of the manned space flight program, was invited to the position of president of the investment company Alfa Capital (the management company of the check investment fund of the same name). (The second striking example of this kind appeared much later - Academician E. Velikhov was appointed head of Rosshelf.)

The group also owns shares in the following companies:

Ownership structure

In October 2010, CNews published its version of the distribution of shares between the three founders of Alfa Group in the telecommunications and other non-banking assets of the group. According to this version, the main share in Alfa is owned not by Mikhail Fridman, but by Alexey Kuzmichev.

In the summer of 2010, Vimpelcom, created by merging the Russian VimpelCom and the Ukrainian Kyivstar, revealed details of its shareholder structure. In particular, the company reported which offshore companies are the beneficiaries of 44.6% of Vimpelcom shares owned by Alfa Group through the telecommunications division of Altimo Holdings & Investments. These are, in particular, Laketown Services from the Isle of Man (42%), Bahamian Cotsmore Holding (18%) and Bardsley Investments from the British Virgin Islands (12%). Vimpelcom does not name the people behind these offshore companies.

Meanwhile, in 2002 American company Golden Telecom, whose majority shareholder at that time was Alfa Group (the company was acquired by VimpelCom in 2008), also reported in its reporting the three above-mentioned offshore companies as beneficiaries of Alfa’s share. The shares of the offshore companies were not named then, but the company disclosed who owned them. Cotsmore is an offshore company whose sole shareholder is the head of the supervisory board of Alfa Group, Mikhail Fridman, Laketown is owned by the current chairman of the advisory committee of the investment company A1 (part of Alfa) Alexey Kuzmichev, and Bardsley is owned by the executive director of the oil company TNK -BP" (partially controlled by Alpha) to German Khan.

Thus, Kuzmichev owns the largest share in Altimo – 42%. Friedman's share is more than half as much - 18%, while Khan's is 12%. According to Alfa Group’s reporting, the group owns 71% of Altimo shares through a chain of Liechtenstein offshore Crown Finance and Gibraltar CTF Holdings, and another 1.5% of shares in the telecommunications holding belong to the owners of Alfa Group directly. CTF Holdings also owns the group's shares in all other assets except Alfa Bank. Taking this into account, it turns out that Kuzmichev’s share in the non-banking assets of Alfa Group is 58%, Friedman – 26%, Khan – 16%.

Ownership scheme of telecommunications assets of Alfa Group

Previously, representatives of Alpha reported that CTF Holdings belongs to the three above-mentioned persons, but the distribution of shares between them has not yet been known. Moreover, the fact that the main share in the group is owned by someone who does not represent Alpha top level Mikhail Fridman, and the ex-head of the closed oil trader Crown Resources Alexey Kuzmichev, came as a surprise to experts. “It’s hard for me to imagine that control of Alpha belongs to anyone other than Friedman,” says Stanislav Belkovsky, president of the Institute of National Strategy. “Most likely, there are some kind of informal agreements that level out the legal distribution of shares.”

“Fridman represents Alpha in public, but it does not follow from this that he should own the majority stake,” notes Vladislav Kochetkov, president of Finam Investment Company. “In addition, Kuzmichev, like Friedman, is a co-founder of Alpha, so this situation is quite possible.” However, in Alfa Bank, according to information previously published by the bank, the main shareholder is still Friedman. His share is 37%, Kuzmichev’s is 18%, and Khan’s is 23%.

The remaining 27% of Alfa Group shares, according to its documents, belong to 6 individuals. In addition to the three above-mentioned offshore companies, Vimpelcom’s reporting lists 6 more offshore companies as beneficiaries of Alpha’s share. This is, in particular, Grand Financial Group from the British Virgin Islands, its share in Altimo is 14%. In 2004, VimpelCom disclosed in its reports that behind this offshore is ex-senator and former managing director of Alfa-Eco (the investment division of Alfa Group) Gleb Fetisov. As a senator, Fetisov from 2002 to 2005. de facto managed Altimo, and now he is working on his own project - “My Bank”.

Another 8% of Altimo belongs to the Gibraltar-based Dendar Invesmetn Fund. Recently, the president of Alfa Bank, Petr Aven, admitted that this was his stake. There remain four more offshore companies registered in the British Virgin Islands - beneficiaries of Altimo: Alja Investments (2%), Fairacre Holdings (2%), Thoro Holding (1.25%) and R&B Investments (0.5%). Judging by previous statements from sources in Alfa, behind these offshore companies are the chairman of the advisory committee of Altimo Andrei Kosogov, the general director of the holding Alexey Reznikovich, the head of the investment company Pamplona Capital Management and the ex-general director of Alfa Bank Alex Knaster and the former adviser to the same bank Alexander Tolchinsky

Story

Corporate wars are the natural element for Alpha structures; its affairs are an important part of the history of Russian business.

At the end of the 1990s. Alfa-eco fought in collaboration with the governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Alexander Lebed, for control of the Achinsk Alumina Refinery - the Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant laid claim to it.

The co-owners of Alfa Group intend to create an online insurer Mango. They invested several million dollars in the startup, RBC sources say. Globally, investments in insurtech startups have exceeded $9 billion in five years.

Victor Lavrenko (Photo: Mark Boyarsky / Kommersant)

The shareholders of Alfa Group intend to create an insurance company that operates only online and have already invested in the startup, two sources in the insurance market told RBC and were confirmed by the managing director (CEO) of the new company, Viktor Lavrenko, and a representative of Alfa Group shareholders.

New company will be called Mango, Viktor Lavrenko told RBC. According to him, Alfa Group shareholders want to move away from the model of a traditional insurance company and create an insurer that will work only online - without offices. In addition to selling its own products, Mango will be able to act as a high-tech marketplace for other companies, Lavrenko added.

At the initial stage, Alfa Group provides financing for the startup, a representative of the shareholders confirmed. “The idea of ​​the new insurance company is to offer a new look at familiar things, using global experience and attracting people with a technological background,” he said. “We plan to change the current one and create new digital insurance markets, in which we will be the undisputed leaders.”

Neither Lavrenko nor the shareholders of Alfa Group comment on the volume of investments and the ownership structure of the company. According to one of RBC’s interlocutors familiar with the project, Alfa Group invested about $10 million. “We are talking about several million dollars of investment,” another source knows. The new company will not be part of the structure of Alfa Group's insurance business - AlfaStrakhovanie, but will operate separately, RBC sources say.

Alfa Group shareholders did not specify the launch date for the new project, noting that it is still at an early stage. Lavrenko also spoke about the early stage of development. According to him, the company's target audience is young people aged 20 to 40, for whom advanced technology and trust are important. Mango “intends to enter new markets that are not yet covered by traditional insurance companies due to the fact that they do not develop and implement technology as quickly as a technology company can,” Lavrenko added, without specifying what new markets he has in mind.

Head for Mango

Viktor Lavrenko founded the search engine Nigma.ru in the 2000s (Yuri Milner’s Digital Sky Technologies fund invested $3.4 million in it), but was unable to attract users. In the early 2010s, he went to Vietnam, where he created the Coc Coc company, the developer of his own browser and search engine. Coc Coc became major player in the Vietnamese Internet market: according to StatCounter as of August 2018, it is the second most popular browser in the country after Google Chrome with a market share of 15.61% and the second search engine (4.09%). In 2015, the German publishing house Hubert Burda Media invested $14 million in Coc Coc. In August, it became known that Lavrenko was returning from Vietnam to Moscow to start launching the Mango insurance company.​

In its infancy

Now in Russia the market for insurtech startups, which includes the Mango project, is in its infancy compared to international markets, says Dmitry Dolgikh, director of the practice for working with insurance companies at KPMG. “The most active people in this direction now are Insurance companies, part of banking holdings and having access to the developments of parent companies in the field of financial technology (fintech),” he notes.

On the global market in startups developing digital technologies in the insurance market (the so-called Insurtech), they invest quite actively. According to the study insurance broker Willis Towers Watson, in the world from 2013 to the end of the second quarter of 2018, $5.1 billion was invested in insurtech startups related to life and health insurance (380 rounds of investment), and with accident insurance and property insurance— $4.2 billion (460 rounds). 58% of all investments come from the USA, 7% of investments went to British startups, 5% each to German and Chinese, 4% to Indian, 3% to French. Other countries account for the remaining 18% of investment.

Against the backdrop of the undeveloped state of the Insurtech market in Russia, create big company it is possible, but for this it will be necessary not only to develop a product that is difficult to copy, but also to change the attitude of the country’s residents towards the very idea of ​​insurance, says Alexey Danilov, CEO and founder of the insurtech company Adaperio. “In Russia, the insurance culture is still in its infancy, and the level of trust in insurance companies is one of the lowest in the consumer interaction segment,” he notes. In addition, one should not forget about the very essence of insurance - taking on risks, and therefore the need to combat fraud on the part of unscrupulous clients, adds Danilov.

Mango’s plans to create a marketplace with products from other insurers are logical, as this allows them to test customer demand for products, says Mark Sanevich, CEO of the medical Insurtech project BestDoctor. The company, in his opinion, can then use the data obtained to create its own product. Eat insurance markets, which have not yet been created in Russia, are, for example, insurance of gadgets for weekends or during vacations. “Now is the hottest time to create your own market and soon take a leading position there,” notes Sanevich.

What is Alfa Group

Alfa Group manages various businesses in the field of financial services (ABH Holdings S.A., AlfaStrakhovanie, Alfa Capital Management Company, Alfa Asset Management S.A.), investments (investment A1), retail trade (X5 Retail Group), as well as water supply (Rosvodokanal), mineral water production (IDS Borjomi International), etc. The group does not have a single legal structure. Alfa Bank, through several companies, is controlled by ABH Holdings S.A., registered in Luxembourg, which belongs to Mikhail Fridman (32.8632%), German Khan (20.9659%), Alexey Kuzmichev (16.3239%), Peter Aven (12.4018%). ), Andrey Kosogov (3.6716%), as well as UniCredit S.p.A. (9.9%) and the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research, registered in the Cayman Islands (3.8736%). AlfaStrakhovanie JSC is owned by UNS Holding LLC (99.9%) and minority shareholders, and its ultimate owner is Luxembourg-based AIH Holdings Limited. Alfa Capital Management Company LLC belongs to equal shares two Russian companies, which, in turn, were founded by foreign legal entities - Luxembourg-based Alfa Capital Investments Holdings S.A. and Alfa Asset Management Holdings Limited from the British Virgin Islands. From the company’s reporting it follows that its ultimate beneficiaries with an ownership share of more than 15% are Mikhail Fridman, German Khan and Alexey Kuzmichev. X5 Retail Group at the end of 2017 was 47.86% owned by CTF Holdings S.A., as well as Intertrust Trustees Ltd (11.43%) and minority shareholders with ownership of less than 3%. Investment company A1, according to SPARK, is owned by the Gibraltar-based Logford Investments Company Limited (99.99%), as well as by Alexander Fine.

With the participation of: Georgy Peremitin