Well. Certainly nothing untoward going on here! Kremlin buying Alfa Bank. Yeah. That Alfa Bank
Kremlin to buy Alfa Bank from oligarch Fridman
http://www.intellinews.com/kremlin-to-buy-alfa-bank-from-oligarch-fridman-153149/
The Kremlin is lining up an audacious deal for one of its proxies to acquire Alfa Bank, Russias largest private lender by assets and a vital cornerstone of the nations financial scene since the early 1990s, bne IntelliNews can reveal.
Either state-controlled VTB Group or Gazprombank, Russias second-largest and third-largest lender, respectively, will be allowed to swallow up Alfa. Mikhail Fridman, the billionaire oligarch founder of the bank who relocated to London in 2015, has agreed in principle to do a deal although the price may still be a sticking point, according to well-placed banking sources.
When asked by a bne IntelliNews correspondent at dinner in the 90s if he would ever sell Alfa Bank, at that time the biggest and most profitable privately owned bank on the market, Fridman replied: Of course. I will always sell. If the price is right. And for Alfa Bank it will have to be a very good price indeed.
A plan to sell Alfa to one of the state banks has been across President Vladimir Putins desk, the sources claim. The future of Alfa as an independent private player has been in jeopardy ever since Fridman transplanted himself to the UK and opted to invest his $14bn bounty from the $55bn sale of the oil producer TNK-BP to Rosneft in projects outside of Russia.