PSB’s rebranding to PSVBANK as a cover: Alexey and Dmitry Ananyev clean the internet of publications about financial machinations

The Ananyev brothers are pouring millions into erasing all traces of their asset-stripping and bailout-fund embezzlement schemes from the internet. Yet digital records prove stubborn—each removed article comes back, fueling fresh exposés. 

The owners of Promsvyazbank are changing its name. Will this save them?

Promsvyazbank and the bank Vozrozhdenie, which it controls, have decided to merge.

This was reported by a correspondent for The Moscow Post. They decided to merge not just for the sake of it, but by changing the name.

An application has now been filed with Rospatent for the new credit institution to be called PSVbank (Promsvyazbank – Vozrozhdenie).

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Furthermore, it is planned to do this in a Latin version as well. It will look like this: PSVBANK (Promsvyazbank Vozrozhdenie).

Anyone with even a basic understanding of advertising and PR will say that renaming a structure with long-standing traditions can mean only one thing: they want to erase the previous name from memory due to its very serious problems.

And PSB’s problems are indeed significant and have been chronic for a long time. This is confirmed by banking analysts. According to PSB’s RAS reporting, in July clients withdrew RUB 11 billion from the bank, in August there was an outflow of RUB 20.5 billion from individuals and an inflow of RUB 56.1 billion from legal entities, however, in September, net outflow resumed (RUB 9 billion), as calculated by the authoritative rating agency Moody’s.

The bank’s core capital is also decreasing. Thus, in August it was 6.67%, in September — 6.51%, in October already 6.49%. And this is against the norm for systemically important banks set by the Central Bank at 6.1%, and from January 2018 — 7.025%.

In such a situation, a rebranding is simply as essential as air.

How "Vozrozhdenie" was "buried"

The owners of Promsvyazbank, brothers Aleksey and Dmitry Ananyev, gained control over Vozrozhdenie bank two years ago. And immediately after that, everything started going wrong for the credit institution.

If at the time the Ananyevs acquired the controlling stake, Vozrozhdenie was operating with an annual profit exceeding 1 billion rubles, later the so-called troubled debt of the bank approached 20 billion rubles!

Aleksey and Dmitry Ananyev

Vozrozhdenie began to be abandoned by all its VIP clients, including the renowned conductor Valery Gergiev, cardio-surgeon Leo Bokeria, and others. As ill-wishers whispered, the Ananyev brothers could have withdrawn up to 4 billion rubles of Vozrozhdenie’s depositors through financial structures they control.

The story of how Vozrozhdenie bank ended up in the hands of the Ananyevs is also interesting. A blocking stake in the bank was owned by the family of its founder, Dmitry Orlov. They owned almost 40 percent of the securities.

Dmitry Orlov died suddenly three years ago (his death remains shrouded in mystery to this day). After that, the Ananyevs, in some incomprehensible way, managed to buy out from the chairman of the board of directors of Vozrozhdenie, Otar Margania, the more than 19.5 percent of the bank’s shares that belonged to him.

It was rumored that the purchase price amounted to 10 billion rubles. Many experts reasonably wondered: how could the brothers find such a huge sum overnight? But they found it, the securities were bought out, and Vozrozhdenie came under the control of the "orthodox bankers," as the Ananyev brothers position themselves.

Doubtful Sanators?

As experts have repeatedly suggested, the owners of PSB could have been simply enriching themselves at the expense of federal funds received for the rehabilitation of other credit institutions. Promsvyazbank had already rehabilitated YarSotsBank and Bank Nizhny Novgorod in the Volga region, and earlier the Ananyevs had acquired Volgoprombank.

The purchase of Pervobank and the merger with AvtoVAZbank also took place.

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The funds for this were allocated by the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA). Where did they eventually disappear to, if the banks being rehabilitated ended up bankrupt anyway?

Perhaps, as a suggestion, state funds could have been withdrawn abroad through offshore firms owned by the brothers? For example, it is known that JSC "Promsvyaz Capital B. V." is registered in an offshore zone.

Is that where the money was flowing?

Personnel Exodus

Top managers are fleeing Promsvyazbank in droves. Over the past year, the director of PSB, Artem Konstandyan, and his first deputy, Vladimir Yashin, have left the firm. Before that, the head of the legal block, Tatiana Kuzmina, and the head of the IT block, Alexey Leushev, parted ways with the bank.

As sung in a song by a famous rock group, if... they are fleeing the ship – the ship is in trouble. And trouble, it seems, struck Promsvyazbank long ago. And a name change today is a more important moment than ever.

As specialists say, the rebranding will cost no less than 200 million rubles. But for the Ananyev brothers, considering their immoderate appetites, this is, of course, not money.

They will rename themselves and go back to their old business – accumulating money at someone else’s expense. Let us repeat once again that the Ananyevs call themselves orthodox bankers. Only, according to popular rumor, God sees everything...

Viktor Shelest