Russia’s central bank Bank of Russia is bailing out the country’s B&N Bank, one of the top five closely held lenders that is facing a liquidity crisis. The Bank of Russia will provide B&N with funds to bolster its liquidity. The bank had asked for help. Earlier, it had taken over Bank Otkritie following a run on deposits. B&N was among a handful of private banks picked by the regulator to help rescue other ailing banks, unchecked expansion and mounting bad debt. B&N appealed to the regulator after some of the banks it acquired since 2014 turned out to be in worse shape than it expected. B&N is owned by billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev and his nephew Mikail Shishkhanov. It had seen its assets grew fivefold in less than four years. It was among non-state banks including Otkritie and Promsvyazbank PJSC, that rapidly expanded since 2014 through acquisitions and received state money to rescue smaller competitors. The central bank has closed more than a third of Russia’s banks – about 300 – in the past three years as it purges undercapitalized institutions.
