Immediately the market participants once again started talking about a merger of Rosgosstrakh with Otkrytiye Bank; such talks have been heard for more than a year and a half. Especially since Otkrytiye immediately activated and began to making a big fuss about Rosgosstrakh. As the media and experts have been repeating, in the case of a merger of two companies, this will be the largest deal in the Russian insurance market. Assets of the State Insurance Company is a tasty piece for any company, and Otkrytiye in the first place.

After all, the term "merger" in this situation is purely arbitrary. In fact, a more applicable definition is a "takeover" of the insurance company by the bank. That's what it has been pursuing long and gard. Rosgosstrakh has long and persistently. Because it is a very tasty piece for any business. The owner of Otkrytiye Vadim Belyaev says about wanting to take the insurance company, as a breath of fresh air. And in the situation with his credit institution is, indeed, true. The bank's situation is not all that well. It would seem that the higher interest rates on customer deposits for some reason are not very tempting. But if it gets Rosgosstrakh with its vast resources, the total asset of the two structures will exceed 4 trillion rubles! Well that's a tempting one. 

In this case, most likely, the bank would also get the most "delicious" Rosgosstrakh's  asset, RGS pension fund. It is, indeed, a royal addition to the bank. The NFP clientele entrusted it almost 165 billion rubles. However, market participants can not imagine how effective and, most importantly, fairly and lawfully the bank of Vadim Belyaev would dispose of the asset. And evil tongues say that the pension fund will be subject to a tacit deal between Belyaev and head of Rosgosstrakh Daniil Khachaturov.

But no one can even imagine what will happen to the pension fund clients after the deal. As the practice shows, Otkrytiye is not very careful about them. By the way, there's another topic suc as the transfer of Rosgosstrakh's "RGS-real estate" to the bank, which holds on its balance sheet nearly 300 insurance offices, which are its branches. There, too, the total cost is quite a decent: almost 30 billion rubles. Belyaev shouldn't, probably, neglect them, either. 

The financial policy of Otkrytiye

The bank's policy is described by all experts as aggressive. Thus, the bank entered the top ten in the country in their lending rates. They were higher than even in such financial monsters as Alfa Bank. If the latter offered 8 per cent per annum, Belyaev announced almost 9 percent. In this situation, even Sberbank nervously smoking in the corner with its miserable 7%. That's a trap, as experts believe, for Otkrytiye to lure to his customers. But how does the bank manage to offer more than generous promises of payments? As financiers believe, this is done by attracting money of new investors. Doesn't it look like anything? A banal financial pyramid. Which as you know, sooner or later ends and leads to the collapse of both the bank itself and its clientele. The latest example was Khanty-Mansiysk branch of Otkrytiye. Over the past year, its income fell by more than 20 times, bringing the loss to the bank at 21 billion rubles.

The net profit of the parent bank of the group, FC Otkrytiye, in the same year, fell more than six-fold to 2.3 billion rubles. The first 9 months of 2016 were in line with this dynamic. The net profit of the banking group during this period decreased by 1.7 times, down to 3.605 billion rubles. Why amid the falling income the group continues to exist, and even in the top of financial institutions of the country? Quite simply, the bank stays afloat by absorbing other banks. In 2012, it actually absorbed Nomos-bank. And this despite the fact that Otkrytiye Bank, which accounts for about 70% of the assets of FC Otkrytiye, clearly has a lower profitability and efficiency than the Nomos-bank.

Moreover, the "pyramidal" banking structure with 240-billion-dollar assets of the bank has managed to get hold of the assets of 640 billion rubles.
Memorable is the with the bank "Trust", which fell under therehabilitation under Otkrytiye. After a brief "recovery", Belyaev demanded from the state almost 50 billion rubles to plug the financial holes. Whose holes these were, remains a mystery. "Trust" in the end did not come out of the peak of CFOs and the allocated money, apparently were used to plug the "holes" of Otkrytiye. The same thing happened with Petrocommerce absorbed by Vadim Belyaev.

In 2012,  Petrocommerce gave Zlatoust Metallurgical Plant a credit amounting to more than 2.5 billion rubles. The money was tgiven to ZMP, on the same day transferred to Metallurgist Trust owned by Mechel group. Then round sum went directly into offshore titled "Masterking Trading Limited", related to the bank, and then - again to Petrocommerce. As the result of that dubious scheme the money actually never left Petrocommerce, while the plant had a huge financial hole, which eventually led to its bankruptcy.  

What's the result of Belyaev's work? All ranking agencies just stopped adding Belyaev's bank to their reports. For others not to get into the greedy mouth of Otkrytiye. However, Rosgosstrakh has chances for that. Despite the troubling economic situation, its merge with Otkrytiye will most likely result into the end of Russia's biggest insurance company.