By Valentina Za, Elvira Pollina and John O’Donnell
MILAN/FRANKFURT, June 18 (Reuters) – Riccardo Orcel, a former senior banker at Russian state-backed bank VTB Group and brother of UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel, helped broker a recent agreement to sell the Italian bank’s Russia business.
His involvement, reported here for the first time, gives insight into how Italy’s second-largest bank has managed to agree to sell its business in Russia, using the experience of the former VTB executive, once one of the best known Western bankers in Moscow. Riccardo Orcel has since left VTB, which is now subject to Western sanctions.
“UniCredit confirmed that Riccardo Orcel presented a proposal regarding their Russian business and was appointed as an independent adviser by UniCredit’s Board in connection with the execution of that process,” the bank said in a statement to Reuters. “The transaction announced last month was the successful outcome of that work.”
Riccardo Orcel declined to comment when reached by Reuters.
UniCredit had long been one of the biggest Western banks in Russia, maintaining its business there throughout the war in spite of pressure from regulators to abandon the country.
UniCredit said in May it had struck a non-binding deal to sell parts of its Russian bank to a “well-established private investor” in the United Arab Emirates and would only retain its payments business in Russia.
Little is known about the identity of the buyer of the business or its backers, other than that they are based in the UAE. Dubai has become an important centre for doing business with Russia, since sanctions have closed down traditional venues such as Vienna.
(Reporting by Valentina Za and Elvira Pollina in Milan and John O’Donnell in Frankfurt. Editing by Elisa Martinuzzi and Tommy Reggiori Wilkes)
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