OREANDA-NEWS. March 5, 2010. In 2010 the well-known leasing product line of UniCredit Group – UniCredit Leasing S.p.A. – decided to join the business of the two Russian companies, UniCredit Leasing and Locat Leasing Russia, under one brand – UniCredit Leasing.

In January 2009, from the integration process between Locat S.p.A. and UniCredit Global Leasing was created the first truly international network of leasing experts. In Europe, UniCredit Leasing is strongly rooted in 17 countries, offering to the market a solid team of professionals and a real operating network able to lease easily and internationally. 2009 was also the year when an active integration of the two Russian leasing companies was performed in the UniCredit Leasing network, and they subsequently began operating under a single brand. Starting from 2009, the shareholders of UniCredit Leasing are UniCredit Leasing S.p.A., Italy (60%) and UniCredit Bank, Russia (40%).

In the end of 2009, Janis Buks was appointed CEO of UniCredit Leasing in Russia. Mr. Buks (40) started his career as a lawyer in the Investment Bank of Latvia. Then he went on being a General Manager at several companies in his native country such as Latvian Industrial Leasing (at present Nordea Finance) and SEB Leasing. In 2004 he became Managing Director of UniCredit Leasing Latvia (HVB Leasing at that time), where he worked for 5 years. In 2009 Janis Buks came to Moscow and he was soon appointed the CEO of the Russian leasing subsidiary of UniCredit.

"My main target in this new position is to ensure the realization of the strategic plans of growth of UniCredit Leasing in Russia in terms of global development strategy coming from the UniCredit Leasing sub-holding in Milan and from UniCredit Group in general”, - states the CEO of UniCredit Leasing Russia, Janis Buks. “The first priority – continues Mr. Buks - , is to reinforce business and perform the commercial re-launch after the severe recession caused by the last year financial turmoil on the markets. At the same time, I will do my best to efficiently join two teams under one brand and the corporate culture of UniCredit, focusing on the service component of our activity".