And as Western companies quit Russia because of those sanctions,imposed as retaliation for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine,he has snapped up assets to expand his own banking business.
On Monday,Potanin’s Interros holding company said it had bought United Card Services,the Russian unit of US-listed Global Payments,for an undisclosed sum.
Last week,he bought 35 per cent of TCS Group Holding,owner of Russia’s leading online bank,from its founder Oleg Tinkov,who had bitterly criticised the war after TCS’s share price plunged.
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Three weeks before that,the head of mining giant Nornickel bought back Rosbank from Societe Generale,to whom he had sold it more than a decade earlier.
That deal could further Potanin’s fintech ambitions. Rosbank is the banking partner of Atomyze,a blockchain platform in which Interros and Nornickel’s Global Palladium Fund are investors.
Global Palladium Fund is one of the first commodity firms to make such a move into digital transactions,and Atomyze is the first Russian firm authorised to exchange digital assets by the government,which is trying to promote a new sector despite objections by the central bank.