MOSCOW, April 3 (RIA Novosti) - The president of Gazprombank, the Russian energy giant’s banking arm, is among individuals who pulled their money from the troubled Laiki Bank just days before Cyprus agreed a “haircut deal” with international lenders, The Financial Times said on Wednesday, citing local media.
Andrei Akimov, president of Gazprombank, which was mentioned as a possible buyer for Laiki bank shortly after Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades won the presidential election on February 24, transferred 2 million euros from his Laiki account on March 6 and closed it down, the FT said.
Gazprombank's press service had not replied to an emailed request for comment from RIA Novosti at 6 p.m. Moscow time on Wednesday.
Anastasiades has launched a probe into the country’s banking disaster, including a “priority” investigation into transactions allegedly handled by his family law firm to help well-connected Cypriots, Russians and Ukrainians make last-minute transfers and avoid a “haircut” on their uninsured deposits of over 100,000 euros, the FT said.
The move follows questions over whether a company managed by the president’s son-in-law made use of inside information to transfer more than 20 million euros out of Laiki Bank, Cyprus’ second largest lender, just days before its collapse, the FT said.
The president’s family has come under scrutiny after Haravghi, the Cyprus Communist party newspaper, published a list of more than 100 companies and three individual account holders who pulled more than 500 million euros from Laiki in the two weeks before Cyprus agreed on March 15 to a “haircut” of bank deposits as part of a proposed 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout by the EU and International Monetary Fund.
A company controlled by the Loutsios family, which owns two car dealerships in Cyprus, emptied two accounts worth 21 million euros on March 12 and 13, according to the list. Antis and Katia Loutsios had earlier cleaned out two personal accounts on March 3-4 worth another 6 million euros. Anastasiades’ daughter Elsa, a partner in the family law firm, is married to Yannos Loutsios, the couple’s son, according to the paper.
The Loutsios family has denied any wrongdoing but could not be reached for comment by the FT. The company said in a statement quoted by the FT it had transferred 10.5 million euros to Bank of Cyprus and another 10.5 million euros to Barclays Bank in London to buy real estate.
Companies controlled by Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s wealthiest businessman, which are clients of Anastasiades’ law firm, withdrew $30 million from Laiki in the first two weeks of March, according to the Haravghi list.
A spokesperson for System Capital Management, the holding company for Akhmetov’s diversified business group, told the FT: “The potential for a financial crisis was widely reported in the international media in advance of EU intervention. Therefore SCM management took prudent action to limit our banking exposure in Cyprus in the weeks and days in advance of the Cyprus debt restructuring.”
