Home win for Romanov as bank trebles profits

Published on Sunday 12 August 2007 00:48

VLADIMIR Romanov's Lithuanian bank has trebled its profits, putting the Hearts Football Club owner on a sounder financial footing as he seeks to expand his financial empire into Scotland.

Ukio Bankas made a record 9m profit in the six months to June, thanks to an increase in assets, growth in customers and operations, and what it described as "reversal of certain specific provisions".

The bank has put back the opening date for its first UK branch, in Edinburgh, to September to give it time to overcome regulatory hurdles. Romanov's company has signed a lease on the Castle Street site which was originally meant to open in March.

A source close to Ukio suggested the bank could tap into Scotland's expanding population of east European workers for its customer base. In the longer term, Romanov hopes to work with Edinburgh's financial community on lucrative West European deals.

Ukio is expected to revise upwards its target of 12m profits this year after the surprise first-half boost. The group held assets worth 740m at the end of June, up 22% on the start of the year.

Moody's, the credit ratings agency, praised Ukio in a recent report for its stable market shares, balanced revenue, stable deposit base and the potential offered by entering the euro.

But the agency had warnings for investors. It said the bank was heavily exposed to the Russian property market, and that an unusually high proportion of its money was loaned to a small number of borrowers. The bank also has a relatively small market share in a country dominated by a few major players and increasingly attracting interest from foreign banks.

Moody's added: "Ukio Bankas remains substantially under the control of one individual [Romanov], whose shareholding is further augmented via majority interests in other shareholder companies and via related parties. Consequently, it could be difficult for the supervisory council to exert sufficient control over [Romanov]."

Romanov is the largest single shareholder of Ukio with just under 33% of the shares. His mother is understood to hold an 8.3% stake.