'A holding of URSA Bank’s shares that Troika Dialog has recently acquired only makes it a minority shareholder and offers the company no substantial control over the bank; however, Troika Dialog is definitely going to become a more influential expert and consultant,’ Finam Investment Bank’s analyst Vladimir Sergievskiy said to UrBC.

'URSA Bank has been doing business with Troika Dialog for a while now; their latest success story involved going through with two preference share issues in 2006 and 2007 that made URSA Bank’s capital rise by $488m. I think Troika Dialog is interested in the bank’s further development and stock market expansion; the company might also want to sell some of its products through URSA Bank,’ Mr. Sergievskiy noted.

The news was broken in the course of a press conference last week. It was announced that Russia New Growth Fund managed by Troika Capital Partners (TCP) had bought URSA Bank’s shareholding consisting of 7.4% of the bank’s ordinary shares acquired from S.M. Capital Group.

'We see this as an advantageous transaction for URSA Bank: they can still be in control of the business and get some investments and a strategic partner with a vital interest in the bank’s capitalization at the same time,’ Mr. Sergievskiy added.