Annual General Meeting resolves to liquidate VTB Bank (Europe) SE.
Frankfurt, March 27, 2023
With the votes of the voting trustee the Extraordinary General Meeting of VTB Bank (Europe) SE (VTBE) on March 24, 2023 in Frankfurt am Main passed the resolution that the bank will be liquidated on April 1, 2023. The Executive Board and Supervisory Board had submitted a corresponding proposal to the Annual General Meeting. From April 1, the bank will therefore proceed with the further winding-down of all remaining business and customer relationships with the addition of the words “in liquidation” or abbreviated to “i.L.”.
“With this decision, we are moving from a state of de facto liquidation, which the bank is already in with the ban on new business and deposit acceptance imposed by the banking supervisory authority last spring, to a wind-down process approved by the Annual General Meeting,” said Frank Hellwig, special representative and CEO of VTBE appointed by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).
BaFin had already prohibited VTBE’s majority owner, Russia’s PJSC VTB Bank, from exercising its voting rights from its subsidiary bank’s shares in April 2022. The voting rights were transferred to a voting trustee by court order at BaFin’s request.
Since the start of the war against Ukraine, VTBE’s business has already shrunk significantly. The focus is on securing daily liquidity. “The bank’s capitalization still allows it to meet all upcoming obligations without any restrictions,” says CFO Miro Zadro. “Especially our savers with deposits at VTBE do not have to take action due to the liquidation of our bank. All customer funds due will be repaid as before and transferred to the specified reference accounts at other banks.” According to current knowledge, the liquidation phase will take a period of several years.
As soon as the audit of the 2022 financial statements, which is currently underway, is completed, VTBE will report in detail on the progress of the liquidation.
Customer deposits at OWH SE i.L. are protected by a two-tier deposit guarantee system. OWH SE i.L. is a member of the statutory compensation scheme of German banks, which secures all credit balances on accounts or savings books, such as demand deposits, other current accounts, time deposits or money payable on demand. The protection limit per creditor is EUR 100,000 per investor and per bank. OWH SE i.L. is additionally affiliated to the Deposit Protection Fund of the Association of German Banks (Bundesverband deutscher Banken e.V.).