The FINANCIAL — Lado Gurgenidze, Executive Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Liberty Bank Georgia, has sold 80% of his shares, a source close to the Bank declared to The FINANCIAL.
Oracle Capital Group, an independent multi-family office dedicated to providing personalized services to high net worth individuals, is involved in the purchase, the source claimed.
According to the latest reports published by National Bank of Georgia, Liberty Bank is jointly owned by billionaire Dan Costache Patriciu with 70.70%, Vladimer Gurgenidze with 7.48% and BNY Limited (Nominees) with 11.27%.
Dodo Botchorishvili, PR Manager at Liberty Bank, did not confirm the sale. National Bank of Georgia and the Association of Banks of Georgia said that they have no such information. The person at Oracle Capital Group office in London who answered the call from The FINANCIAL also said that she is not familiar with the Liberty Bank deal.
“Everyone involved in the top management of Georgian banks is already aware of the fact that Gurgenidze has sold his shares of Liberty,” The FINANCIAL’s source assured.
On February 27, Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili said that Russia was allegedly buying out Georgian banks, including one of the country’s largest banks – Liberty Bank.
Speaking at a press briefing, Saakashvili said that Liberty Bank was purchased by Russia’s largest lender Sberbank, while two more Russian banks, namely Alfa-Bank and Gazprombank, have eyed other Georgian banks.
Director General of Liberty Bank Lado Gurgenidze, however, later denied that his bank had been purchased by Russia’s Sberbank.
“I want to point out that the information is not true. We have neither had talks with the Russian bank in the past, nor in the present,” Gurgenidze wrote on his Facebook account.
Later, before leaving for Azerbaijan, the President told journalists that he was sorry that he had reported incorrect information about the banks.
“Unfortunately, the information which I had was not confirmed, and I am very sorry if I said anything incorrect,” he said, but added that he ‘truly knows’ that Russian banks have an interest in purchasing Georgian banks.
“I do know that one of the banks which I named is in negotiations about merging with one of the large Russian banks. This is true, and they have probably denied it, but if I named banks incorrectly, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t intend to create problems for the banks,” he said.
Saakashvili added that he wants the Georgian banking sector to be strong and independent.
Liberty Bank is a successor to state-owned “AgroMretsvBank” which was privatised in 1994, renamed “People’s Bank of Georgia” in 2002 and then “Liberty Bank” in March 2010. Liberty Bank is the fourth largest bank in Georgia by total assets, with a 6.6% market share as of 30 September 2012. The Bank has the largest branch network and serves approximately 1.4 million individuals and over 55 thousand legal entities.
One of the former shareholders of the Bank, Giorgi Goguadze, said in October 2012 that former founders of the Bank Irina Jincharadze, Aliona Kovalenko and he himself, are negotiating with National Bank of Georgia as they intend to regain Liberty Bank.
The Bank was founded in 2002. The shareholders of the Bank were: Giorgi Goguadze (9.59%) who was a majoritarian MP of the United National Movement from the Isani district; Irina Jincharadze (24.88%), Ltd Starcord Resources (20.18%), Elene Kovalenko (20.18%) and other smaller shareholders.
On 19 September, 2009, Liberty Bank was acquired by Liberty Capital LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Liberty Investments B.V. Liberty Investments is an investment company focused on financial services institutions in emerging and frontier markets. Its ultimate beneficial shareholders are Dinu Patriciu and Lado Gurgenidze.
Gurgenidze, who is also acting Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Bank of Kigali, the largest bank in Rwanda, said that the Bank was brought back to life by the new owners after being “clinically dead” in 2008.
For the years 2008 and 2009 the Bank ended with losses of 45.7 GEL million and GEL 5.4 million respectively. In 2010 the net income of the Bank was GEL 4.6 million, in 2011 – GEL 7.6 million. As for 2012, the results of the first half have been published, which amount to GEL 1.5 million.
Latest update: Liberty Bank CEO Denies the Sale of His Shares
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