The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the nationalization of the "Sens Bank" (formerly "Alfa Bank Ukraine"), the owners of which are the sanctioned Russian oligarchs Mykhailo Fridman, Petro Aven and Andriy Kosogov.
The Ministry of Finance informed about this on July 21.
Shares of the financial institution will be purchased for 1 hryvnia. "Sens Bank" will become state-owned. Its governing body is the Ministry of Finance. Further, on the proposal of the Ministry of Finance and with the agreement of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the Cabinet of Ministers must choose a new top management of the "Sense Bank".
Nationalization of the bank will not affect how the bank will fulfill its obligations to clients. After the end of martial law, the Ministry of Finance will attract investors to sell the bank.
The Ministry of Finance explains that the stateʼs participation in the bankʼs nationalization is a necessary step to preserve the stability of the banking system and protect depositors and other creditors of the bank if sanctions are introduced against the owners of a significant share of the bank.
- On June 16, Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law allowing the NBU to nationalize banks of sanctioned owners, but only systemic banks. This law allowed the National Bank to launch the nationalization of the "Sens Bank". On July 20, the NBU informed that it was withdrawing "Sens Bank" from the market.
- ABH Ukraine Limited (Cyprus) and ABH Holdings SA (Luxembourg) are the owners of direct significant participation in the bank, the owners of indirect significant participation are Russian citizens Fridman, Aven and Kosogov. In 2022, they were included first in the international and later in the Ukrainian sanctions lists.