‘The only reason we gave up on the idea of buying Bank Severnaya Kazna was that we had a certain upper price limit that we couldn’t afford to break during the negotiations. In fact, we did state this exact reason to the bank’s stockholders as soon as the talks were over,’ the spokesperson for AFK Sistema Yulia Belous said to an UrBC reporter.

As it happens, the acquisition of Bank Severnaya Kazna by AFK Sistema (which was willing to handle the bank’s financial recovery) was cancelled at the last minute. The bank’s former BOD Chairman Vladimir Frolov later hinted at Sistema’s dubious paying capability.

‘Yes, I did cancel the acquisition transaction at the last minute, for I had my reasons, namely, the potential buyer wasn’t prepared to make the payments on some of the contract’s points,’ Frolov said in his interview to Banki.ru.

One has, therefore, grounds to believe that the bank’s former BOD Chairman had raised the price in the course of the negotiations, and this price was something the buyer couldn’t accept.