Andrey Kostin

Andrey Leonidovich Kostin (Russian: Андрей Леонидович Костин; born September 21, 1956) is a Russian banker, currently President and Chairman of the Management Board of VTB Bank, Member of the Supervisory Council, Member of the Strategy and Corporate Governance Committee, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of several VTB subsidiaries, PhD in Economics. [1] Shares owned in the charter capital of VTB Bank – 0.00036%.[2]

Andrey Kostin
Born
Andrey L. Kostin

(1956-09-21) September 21, 1956
Moscow, Russia.
NationalityRussian
Alma materMoscow State University, Faculty of Economics
OccupationPresident and Chairman of VTB Bank
WebsiteVTB.com

Awards
  • Order of the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Seraphim, 2nd class;
  • Orders For Merit to the Fatherland (2nd, 3rd and 4th classes);
  • Order of Honour;
  • Order of Merit (France);
  • Received a Presidential Letter of Appreciation for his great contribution to the development of the national economy, the strengthening of Russia's position in the global oil and gas industry and his successful efforts to improve the investment climate in the Russian Federation (2017);
  • Certificate of Appreciation from the Government of the Russian Federation for Professional and Public Achievements (2016);
  • Presidential Certificate of Honour for contributions to the socio-economic development of the Russian Federation, professional achievements, civic engagement, and many years of dedicated service (2015);
  • Letter of Gratitude of the Russian Government for significant personal contributions to the development of the Russian banking system and many years of hard work (2006);
  • Russian Government Certificate of Honour for significant personal contributions to the development of the Russian banking system and many years of hard work (2001);
  • Russian Government Certificate of Honour for significant personal contributions to the development of foreign banking activity in Russia (1998).

Banking career
Kostin, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong at the APEC Australia 2007
Kostin and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at an opening ceremony of the Russian Commercial Bank in Cyprus in 2010

He is one of the most active representatives of the Russian banking sector and is a frequent guest on CNBC,[3] Fox News,[4] CNN,[5] BBC and Bloomberg TV-channel. He has three times participated in the Charlie Rose show on Bloomberg television,[6] as well as the Hard Talk programme on BBC.[7] He has been attending the World Economic Forum (Davos, Switzerland) since 1996.[8]

On January 19, 2017, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kostin, called for the sanctions on the Russian financial sector, especially the "four leading Russian banks" to be lifted.[9]

In May 2017, Kostin suggested the Washington elite was purposefully disrupting the presidency of Donald Trump by spreading false accusations about his ties to Russia.[10]

On January 22-4, 2018, during interviews at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kostin again stated that additional sanctions against individuals or entities would be an "economic war".[11][12]

In April 2018, the United States imposed sanctions on him and 23 other Russian nationals.[13][14]

He is on the supervisory board of Post Bank.[15]

Corruption allegations

In 2019, the team of Russian lawyer, political activist and founder of the non-governmental organization Fund for Combating Corruption (Russian: Фонд борьбы с коррупцией, FBK for short) Alexei Nawalny uncovered a corruption scandal resulting from Kostin's long-standing affair with TV presenter and journalist Nailya Asker-zade (b. December 13, 1987, Baku, Azerbaijan). Thus, since 2018, the lover of the president of the state bank VTB used, at the expense of the Russian state, the aircraft "Bombardier Global 6000, T7-KLT", which used to belong to a subsidiary of VTB, as well as a 62-meter yacht. Today, the jet belongs to an offshore company that appears to have nothing to do with VTB. And although the owner of the yacht could not be determined, an offshore company is involved here as well, as the creation of the ownership documents was handled anonymously through a shell company. The FBK team claims to have established a link between Asker-zade and the use of the jet by connecting various cities where the journalist had conducted interviews with high-profile figures (mostly politicians), her Instagram photos, and all of the plane's movements. Navalny and his team noted which flights the presenter took on the luxury jet. Thus, in 2019 alone, she flew to Sochi (February 12), London (March 1), Tanzania (June 20), Nice (July 13), Rome (August 22), Vladivostok (September 3), Brussels (September 19), St. Petersburg (June 8, 24, Sept. 24), Irkutsk (Sept. 24), Paris (April 24, Oct. 4), Yekaterinburg (Oct. 7), Tallinn (Nov. 14) and Riga (Nov. 15). The aircraft cost about $60 million (or 3.9 billion rubles), and FBK does not rule out the possibility that the jet may have only been rented. But even then, the rental cost would be the immense sum of 559,000 rubles per hour of flight. Since Asker-zade had made 16 flights with the aircraft between August 4 and September 3, 2019, with a total duration of 51.5 hours, the rental costs would amount to 28.9 million rubles per month. He also said that the 62-meter yacht named "Sea & Us" was worth $62 million (or about 4 billion rubles). To prove that Kostin's lover was indeed on the yacht, Navalny's team had compared photos of the yacht with photos from Asker-zade's Instagram account showing various details of the yacht. All the sums of money mentioned are significantly above the budget of the Russian TV presenter.

Moreover, FBK's investigation has revealed that according to the Unified State Register of Real Estate, Nailya Asker-zade has been the owner of 53 ares of land and a house with an area of 923 m² in the cottage village of Shukovka-3 in Rublyovka near Moscow since 2015. This dacha cost at least 250 million rubles. Mention is also made of two apartments in the residential complex "Novaya Ostoshenka" in Moscow, which Asker-zade acquired in 2011 and 2014. She received the first apartment (229 m² of living space) as a gift from Kirill Zimarin, the head of a subsidiary of VTB in Cyprus, while the second apartment (155 m² of living space) she took directly from VTB, the previous owner. The TV presenter confirmed in an interview with the fashion magazine "Tatler" that she was the owner of an apartment in Moscow and stressed that it was large. Kostin, according to Navalny in his video clip, uses colossal sums of money from his bank, 60.9% of which is state-owned, to buy luxurious real estate for his beloved. In any case, it is clear from what has been said that there are numerous indications, if not proofs, of a corruption scandal.[16]

Personal life

Kostin's father Leonid Kostin (1922-2016) was an economist with expertise in labor economics. He was serving at several systems in the Soviet Union, including prolonged functioning in the system of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Government of USSR, at to a level of deputy (vice-) department head (vice-minister) in these both "inseparable" organizations. He traveled internationally extensively promoting ideas and decisions of the party. Kostin's wife is Natalya and they had one son Andrey.[17][18]

In 2018, a number of media portals reported about a “special personal relationship,” which, at least since 2014, have connected Kostin with the journalist Nailya Asker-Zade. In November of 2018, the Arbitration Court of the city of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region deemed this information to be untrue and defamatory to business reputation.[19] The same decision prohibited the dissemination of this information in the territory of the Russian Federation. In 2019, newspapers such as Vedomosti and Kommersant, Forbes magazine and Radio Liberty reported that about 1,000 digital publications about Kostin were blocked by Roskomnadzor [20][21][22][23] The relationship was confirmed with a plaque dedicated to Kostin from Nailya Asker-Zade found on a bench in Central Park, New York City in a video by Alexei Navalny published in December 2019, who also accused Kostin of lavishing Asker-Zade with gifts, including a $4 Million Mansion, a 200-Foot Yacht and a private jet.[24]

Son Andrey

Kostin's son Andrey (1978-2011), a banker, graduated from the Russian Government Finance Academy in 2000 and began working with Deutsche Bank's London office.[25][26] From 2002-2007, he work in Deutsche Bank's Office of Interbank and Corporate Sales in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.[25] In April 2007 following Deutsche Bank's Co-CEO Anshu Jain's strategy of developing partnerships with state partners, Kostin returned to Russia and worked for Deutsche Bank's Moscow office overseeing more than $40 billion in debt and equity transactions.[25][27][28] Deutsche Bank's Moscow office then began posting profits of $500 million to $1 billion a year.[27] Later, in 2008, to establish VTB Capital, numerous bankers from Deutsche Bank's Moscow office were hired by VTB Capital.[29][30][31] He served on its management board beginning July 2008 and was the deputy chairman of the management board from February 2011.[25]

On July 2, 2011, at 7:30 a.m., while he was at a vacation retreat reserved for FSB personnel, he tragically died when his Can-Am Outlander-800 ATV crashed into a tree along a country road near Pereslavl-Zalessky and the village of Los (Russian: Лось) in the Yaroslavl region of Russia.[25] He was not wearing a helmet.[26]

See also

References
  1. Official bio
  2. "Andrey Kostin". www.vtb.com. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
  3. Russia Will Continue Bank Privatization: VTB's Kostin - CNBC
  4. Kostin: Russia Needs More Regulation - FOX News
  5. Russia's economic woes - CNN
  6. Charlie Rose show - Andrey Kostin Archived November 20, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  7. BBC HARDtalk - Andrey Kostin on YouTube
  8. "Милости просим к нам в Баку". Швейцарские новости на русском языке. Retrieved 2016-03-02.
  9. "Time for Trump to remove US sanctions against Russian banks – VTB head". RT. January 19, 2017. Retrieved May 18, 2018.
  10. Arnold, Martin; Buckley, Neil (30 May 2017). "Putin ally accuses US elite of 'paralysing' Trump". Financial Times. Retrieved 30 May 2017.
  11. Golubkova, Katya; Antonov, Dmitry (January 22, 2018). "Russia's VTB bank head Kostin shrugs off U.S. sanctions risk". Reuters. Retrieved May 18, 2018.
  12. Rudnitsky, Jake; Lacqua, Francine (January 24, 2018). "U.S. Sanctions Would Be 'Economic War' to Head of Russia's VTB". Bloomberg. Retrieved May 18, 2018.
  13. "Ukraine-/Russia-related Designations and Identification Update". United States Department of the Treasury. 2018-04-06. Retrieved 2018-04-06.
  14. "США ввели санкции против семи российских олигархов и 17 чиновников из "кремлевского списка"" [The US imposed sanctions against seven Russian oligarchs and 17 officials from the "Kremlin list"]. Meduza (in Russian). 2018-04-06. Retrieved 2018-04-06.
  15. "Избран новый состав наблюдательного совета "Почта Банка"" [The new composition of the Supervisory Board "Bank of the Post" was elected]. Post Bank (Russia) website (in Russian). December 27, 2017. Retrieved February 15, 2018.
  16. Falke, Horst (1974-12-31). "Exkursion durch die Nahemulde von Bad Münster am Stein bis nach Idar-Oberstein am 18. April 1974". Jahresberichte und Mitteilungen des Oberrheinischen Geologischen Vereins. 56: 47–54. doi:10.1127/jmogv/56/1974/47. ISSN 0078-2947.
  17. "Костин Андрей Леонидович" [Kostin Andrey Leonidovich]. Lobbying.ru (in Russian). Retrieved October 17, 2018.
  18. "Костин Андрей" [Kostin Andrey]. Lenta.ru (in Russian). Retrieved October 17, 2018.
  19. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-04-06. Retrieved 2019-04-06.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  20. Ведомости (2019-04-04). "Роскомнадзор массово блокирует статьи о ВТБ и его президенте". www.vedomosti.ru. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  21. "Роскомнадзор заблокировал около тысячи публикаций о главе ВТБ и журналистке ВГТРК" (in Russian). www.kommersant.ru. 2019-04-05. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  22. "Рунет и Facebook зачищают от Костина: в интернете массово исчезают публикации о госбанкире | Общество". Forbes.ru. 2019-04-05. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  23. "Роскомнадзор заблокировал около тысячи публикаций о главе ВТБ". Радио Свобода. 2019-04-05. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  24. Troianovski, Anton (2019-12-03). "From a Russian Banker, a $4 Million Mansion and a 200-Foot Yacht". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-08-23.
  25. "Сын главы ВТБ Андрей Костин разбился на квадроцикле: 32-летний банкир погиб на отдыхе в Ярославской области" [The son of the head of VTB Andrei Kostin crashed on a quad: 32-year-old banker died on holiday in the Yaroslavl region]. Izvestia (in Russian). July 2, 2011. Retrieved October 17, 2018.
  26. Шипилов, Евгений; Танас, Ольга (July 4, 2011). "Погиб на трезвую голову: В ДТП погиб сын президента ВТБ Андрей Костин" [Killed sober: The accident killed the son of the president of VTB Andrei Kostin]. Gazeta (in Russian). Retrieved October 17, 2018.
  27. Harding, Luke (December 21, 2017). "Is Donald Trump's Dark Russian Secret Hiding in Deutsche Bank's Vaults?". Newsweek. Retrieved October 17, 2018.
  28. Sampathkumar, Mythili (April 14, 2017). "Former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove says Donald Trump borrowed money from Russia during 2008 financial crisis: Days before taking office, Mr Trump said Russia had never had any 'levarage' over him". The Independent. Retrieved October 17, 2018.
  29. Corcoran, Jason (22 December 2011). "Putin Pushing Russian Banks Points 'Two Tanks' at Western Firms". Bloomberg Businessweek. London.
  30. Rapoza, Kenneth (October 12, 2011). "Russian Bank Heads To New York". Forbes. New York City. Retrieved December 17, 2018.
  31. Protess, Ben; Silver-Greenberg, Jessica; Drucker, Jesse (July 19, 2017). "Big German Bank, Key to Trump's Finances, Faces New Scrutiny". The New York Times. Retrieved December 17, 2018.
  • www.vtb.com: CV
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