OREANDA-NEWS. The share of Western investment banks in revenues from transactions in Russia, including the placement of shares and bonds, mergers and acquisitions, and syndicated lending, was 78% since the beginning of 2019, according to July 11, provided to the Russian media by Refinitiv. This level hasn't reached this level since 2008 when compared with the results for the year, or since 2007 when compared with the results for July of each year.

In this way, the income of Western investment banks since the beginning of 2019 exceeded the income of state banks by 3.5 times: $ 161.3 million against $ 46.2 million. At the end of 2018, the share of Western players in the income from Russian investment transactions was 67%, and to its historical minimum (53%) it fell in 2015. At the dawn of the 2000s, the share of “foreigners” in the Russian investment market reached 97%, and in the best years for the market it fluctuated around 80%.

The “pie” of the market has become very small, so one or two transactions can greatly influence the results”, said a former top manager of a large Western investment bank. This was especially noticeable in 2018, when the income of investment banks fell to $ 277.6 million from $ 548.5 million a year earlier. The situation in 2019 is much better: by the beginning of July the figure had already reached $ 207.4 million, follows from the Refinitiv data.

Leading positions in income from investment transactions since 2011 has been occupied by VTB Capital (only Sberbank was second only to 2014 in leadership), Refinitiv data show. However, in addition to VTB, only two Russian banks entered the top 10 investment banks (from the beginning of 2019): - Gazprombank (fifth place) and Sberbank (tenth place). Sberbank last autumn combined investment and corporate business, including due to the lack of demand for investment services. The remaining places were divided among themselves by Western investment structures. The best positions are from Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and Citi.