Molto male...
X-S&PGRBulletin: RBI's Financials Hit By Russian Court Decision (SPC)
FRANKFURT (S&P Global Ratings) Jan. 21, 2025--S&P Global Ratings said today that Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI; A-/Negative/A-2) will see a negative impact on its full-year 2024 profits because of a litigation risk provision in response to a Russian court ruling against AO Raiffeisenbank, the Russian-subsidiary of RBI.
On Jan. 20, 2025, the Arbitration Court of the Kaliningrad Region ordered RBI to pay EUR2.044 billion to MKAO Rasperia Trading (MKAO) through AO Raiffeisenbank. MKAO is a sanctioned entity in the U.S. and EU. Importantly, we understand that RBI, in agreement with its auditors, will book a significantly lower net legal risk provision after considering what it sees as expected proceeds from legal recourse against the plaintiff's assets in Austria. We understand RBI will appeal the Russian court decision and will file a claim against MKAO in Austria. We analyze RBI as part of the larger Raiffeisen Banking Group Austria (RBG) and think that RBG has sufficiently high capital to withstand this unexpected financial hit without any affecting our ratings on RBI.
As a result of RBI's legal risk provision and the negative financial impact of about EUR830 million from the sale of the Belarusian subsidiary, Priorbank JSC, in November 2024, RBI's 2024 full-year consolidated profits are likely largely depleted, leading to a fall in capital ratios. We estimate that RBI's consolidated common equity tier 1 (CET1) ratio as of Dec. 31, 2024, is weakened by the court ruling by close to 150 basis points (bps) on a gross basis (considering the EUR2.044 billion legal risk provision), but that the net effect is materially lower. Similarly, we estimate its maximum distributable amount (MDA) buffer had declined at year-end 2024 (from 555 bps as of Sept. 30, 2024), but that it will remain well above the regulatory minimum headroom of at least 200 bps. We already reflect the risk of tighter-than-expected MDA headroom, and associated coupon nonpayment risk, in an additional notch deduction for the bank's additional tier 1 instruments ('BB' issue rating).
Sanction and reputational risks remain elevated for RBI, in our view, due to its operations in Russia, which regulators continue to scrutinize. The war in Ukraine and associated political risks keep event risks high for the bank, including potential regulatory intervention in the future. Positively, RBI continues to successfully run down its operations in Russia, with an almost 70% reduction in loan exposures between second-quarter 2022 and third-quarter 2024. This is in line with the expectations of the European Central Bank as its supervisory authority, which foresees a significant business reduction by 2026.
The transfer ban on RBI's 100% stake in AO Raiffeisenbank, based on the decision by a Russian court on Sept. 5, 2024, remains untouched and hinders RBI from continuing with its plans to exit the Russian market.