On the eve of the general shareholders' meeting, VTB's management decided to copy Sberbank's initiative to create a council of minority shareholders. The fact that they decided to copy it is great. But the way they did it perfectly demonstrates the stupidity and crookedness of VTB's management. At Sber, everything was clear: the council members are appointed by Gref. Not the best way to form such a body—in fact, plainly speaking, a bad way. But at least it was clear. VTB, meanwhile, did the following: 1) applications are accepted from those wishing to join the council; 2) a "competent independent jury" selects the best 30; 3) shareholders vote on the website to choose 10 people for the council. In other words, roughly the same thing as at Sber, only badly disguised as a "transparent and democratic procedure." The "competent independent jury" looks especially amusing—just two rather obscure guys. Igor Belikov — member of the board of directors of the Institute of Internal Auditors, and Vladislav Kudinov — deputy head of the Working Group of the Presidium of the General Council of the United Russia party (the main pro-Kremlin political party) on protecting the rights of depositors and equity holders. Interestingly, when VTB announced the creation of the council, the jury included Maxim Blant, an economic commentator for Newsru.com. Then, for some reason, he was no longer there. I, of course, also submitted my application to participate. Needless to say, the "competent independent jury" prudently kicked me out at the very first stage. VTB is not disclosing who submitted applications, but the list of the "best 30" looks like this. Then comes voting with unclear rules (either one shareholder, one vote, or votes proportional to shareholdings) and an unclear counting procedure. Of course, it irritates me quite a bit that I didn't make it through, but that was obvious. My correspondence with VTB and my comments in the media about its activities have been, let's say, rather harsh. Obviously, the guys don't want me continuing my investigations into their fraud schemes as a member of VTB's minority shareholders' advisory council. And most importantly, the swindlers at VTB think that creating fake councils will help deflect some of the criticism at the general meeting on June 29. Not a chance. 19% of the bank's loan portfolio consists of "bad loans." And since the "people's IPO" (a mass-market public offering aimed at retail investors), investors have lost 73% of their money. Moreover, VTB shares started falling long before the crisis. So the conversation with these "effective managers" won't be easy.
People