Corporate flight from Russian investments could also involve other big European capital banks
Rome, March 4 - Neftegaz.RU. Italian banking group
Intesa Sanpaolo has put its Russian operations under strategic review, in a move that could hamper financing for the country's oil and gas sector, Reuters reported on March 3, citing a company spokesperson.
Intesa Sanpaolo is one of Europe's biggest banking groups with a €44.6 billion ($49.4 billion) market capitalisation.
It has just under €1 billion in capital and assets in Russia and €300 million in Ukraine.
Its notable deals over the years include the €5.2 billion loan it provided to support Russia's sale of 19.5% of
Rosneft to Qatar Petroleum and Glencore in 2017.
According to Reuters, it also financed the 16 billion m3/yr
Blue Stream pipeline, run by Gazprom, Italy's Eni and Turkish pipe operator BOTAŞ.
Reuters estimates it had €5.6 billion ($6.2 billion) in loans on its Russian books at the end of 2021, equating to 1.1% of overall credit exposure.
The corporate recoil from Russian investments could soon spread to other big European capital
banks, Reuters suggested, especially those with lower leverage to the country.
A spokesperson for Italy's № 2 bank UniCredit refused to say whether it would mount a full write down of its Russian assets, which was costed above €1 billion.
French bank Societe Generale said March 3 its top-standard capital ratio would fall by just 0.5 percentage points if its Russian business was confiscated.
