The Moscow School of Management Skolkovo has changed its main lending bank: instead of the $245 million credit line opened in October 2008, the project will now be financed by Gazprombank over the next 12 years. Sberbank has rid itself of criticism from its minority shareholders, who argued that Skolkovo, having pledged its own building as collateral for the loan, would not repay the funds. The business school could save up to $140 million through this deal, as Gazprombank’s rates are significantly lower than those in 2008. ///////// So this story, which I spent quite a lot of time on, has finally come to an end. You can read everything under my "Sberbank" tag.
Sberbank is finally getting rid of this disgusting loan. I’m very glad that Gref made this decision. As a Sberbank minority shareholder, I made a fuss about this issue for a long time. I have to admit that in some ways I was wrong: the interest rate on the loan for the Skolkovo school was at market level. I still believe, however, that the overall lending scheme was not market-based. Skolkovo paid only the interest, while the principal was not being repaid. It’s obvious why: the school’s profitability is a complete fiction that exists only in the imagination of Ruben Vardanyan, who is building himself a monument at someone else’s expense. But one way or another, in the end Sberbank made money on the deal. Shareholders suffered no losses. Gref came out looking good. Sberbank’s independent directors (I would especially note Sergei Guriev) did what they were supposed to do in this situation. Everyone is happy. There was a lot of talk that Skolkovo would restructure the loan with some foreign bank. I never believed it. No normal bank would want such a dubious loan. And that is exactly what happened. The loan went to Gazprombank. These characters who stole a billion dollars from Gazprom just a couple of weeks ago, can probably take Skolkovo on as part of the package too. Let them tell each other fairy tales there about the many students supposedly ready to pay 90,000 euros, the enormous value of the campus, Vardanyan’s personal guarantee, and how, according to him, he owns Mount Ararat, and so on.