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The London based INI Banking Corporation, was in effect a holding company, and as such it held shares in a collection of banks and financial undertakings, in the UK and overseas. It managed a bevy of hedge funds, held bonds and other securities, and owned fixed assets such as property, as well as trademarks, brand names and licences.
Its principle interests were in the different banks that formed the group notably INB (Irish Netherlands Bank) Ltd, in which it held a majority stake, as well as its private and investment banking units, overseas banks - in Dublin, Amsterdam and Hong Kong. As for InterBank, Moscow, its shares were held in an INI Luxembourg registered holding company.
The holding company was based in the Gould INI Tower in the City of London, where it managed its investments. The UK retail bank, INB Ltd., and the private and investment banking units were also headquartered at the same address.
In 2010, the logic of creating a link with Russia, with its enormous natural resources - the development of which called for financing on a vast scale, had made good sense.
It been a unique opportunity and the two banks, INB and InterBank, seized it, forming a partnership via a vehicle created for that sole purpose, the Luxembourg holding company, in which each bank was represented by its respective CEO. Fitzwilliams and Tarasov were each attributed twenty percent of the shares in the INI Banking Corporation (Luxembourg) LLC, and the remaining sixty percent held in equal parts by their respective banks in London and Moscow.
Luxembourg
They had been encouraged by the Kremlin’s movers who believed it would forward their ambitious plan to transform Moscow into a banking centre and an international finance hub.
The existence of a Memorandum of Understanding between financial authorities in Moscow and Luxembourg, laying out the terms of a know-how sharing agreement between the two countries, had encouraged more than three thousand Russians, specialists in banking, finance and related services, to set up residence in the Grand Duchy, which was effectively one of the EU’s principal offshore banking hubs, with its tradition of banking secrecy and its cross-border financial expertise.
About that time, the all powerful Russian giant Gazprom established a bank in Luxembourg. The Bank GPB International SA, offered corporate banking, investment banking and asset management services. It was not alone, as other vehicles owned by major Russian businesses were already established there to facilitate the movement of the oligarchy’s capital.
In this way INI Luxembourg and its Dublin counterpart managed bond issues for Russian energy producers, including Yakutneft, earning substantial commissions in process.
Cornucopia Page 69
