Putin OKs Citi’s sale of Russian banks to Mikhail Prokhorov

Russian strongman Vladimir Putin has rubber-stamped the sale of Citi’s Russian banking operations to Renaissance Capital, an investment firm that belongs to billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, the former proprietor of the Brooklyn Nets.

The presidential order was published on the Kremlin’s website on Wednesday, confirming a key step in the Jane Fraser-led lender’s deliberate exit from Russia, three years after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine that has killed tens of hundreds of people.

Renaissance Capital is an element of Prokhorov’s Onexim conglomerate.

Russian strongman Vladimir Putin signed a decree that successfully rubber-stamped the sale of Citi’s Russia operations. by way of REUTERS

The 60-year-old, who bought the NBA outfit to Joseph Tsai for $2.3 billion in 2019 amid reported pressure from Putin, fled to Israel two months after Russia invaded its smaller neighbor.

The sale to Renaissance, which had been sophisticated by wider Western sanctions and asset freezes on Russian entities, still requires approval from US regulators.

It follows related exits by Wall Street large Goldman Sachs, Germany’s Deutsche Bank, and French financial firm Société Générale.

A Citi spokeswoman told The Post: “The transaction is subject to additional approvals and we won’t be commenting further at this stage.”

News of the diktat, which supplied no particulars of the price or timeline of the transaction, was first reported by Bloomberg.

The transfer comes weeks after Citi’s board of directors voted to make Scotland-born Fraser the bank’s board chair while awarding her a $25 million bonus of restricted stock.

Renaissance Capital is an element of Mikhail Prokhorov’s Onexim empire. He was the first non-American to own an NBA franchise, snapping up the then-New Jersey Nets in 2009. Euroleague Basketball by way of Getty Images

Citi first announced plans to promote its Russian client business in 2021 as half of Fraser’s global restructuring plan.

But in August 2022, it went additional and announced that it will wind down all of its client and industrial banking operations in Russia over the warfare, which Moscow merely refers to as a “special military operation.”

The bank had roughly $11.7 billion in purchasers’ publicity to Russia as of the end of September, the majority of which had been company dividends that the Russian authorities wouldn’t permit Citi to remit.

Citi has been current in the Russian retail banking market since the early 2000s. But the lender has accelerated its exit plans since Russia invaded Ukraine. Bloomberg by way of Getty Images

Fraser is planning to dump some 14 banking items worldwide, and Citi is predicted to finalize the sale of its subsidiary in Poland while shuttering its actions in Korea and China as half of its drive to slash prices.

Citi is also trying to promote its Mexico client banking unit, often called Banamex, by an IPO.

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