OREANDA-NEWS. October 25, 2012. VTB Bank executives met with shareholders in Ufa to focus on how to effectively manage personal finances as well as on various aspects of the VTB Group’s business, reported the press-centre of VTB Bank.

More than 120,000 Russians purchased VTB shares in the “people’s IPO” in 2007; and over 100,000 minority holders, who still own stock after a buyback VTB announced in spring 2012, do not have a solid enough grasp of how the stock market operates. VTB is holding a series of training seminars in big Russian cities to raise awareness.

Several VTB executives travelled from Moscow to Ufa to hold the seminar, including VTB Bank Shareholder Relations Service head Vladimir Khotkin, Corporate Secretary Yevgeny Ignatyev and director of the Shareholder Relations Service Yuri Marinichev.

The seminar was attended by about a hundred VTB shareholders and customers. The bank representatives talked about the bank’s financial highlights, its corporate governance structure and privileges that shareholders are entitled to. Stanislav Kleshchov, managing director and chief analyst at the VTB 24 Investment Department, gave a detailed presentation on the Russian and international stock markets. While acknowledging a generally negative trend on the global stock markets, he said that banking assets, including VTB stock, are currently undervalued, which suggests good growth prospects. The experts answered shareholders’ questions.

Alexei Samsonov, head of VTB’s Ufa Branch, also spoke at the meeting. “VTB Bank is actually the only public Russian company which maintains ongoing contact with its shareholders and makes efforts to educate them,” he said. “Our second meeting with shareholders in Ufa shows how effective this work is. People become informed investors; they gain an understanding of how to manage their finances and how markets work. I hope that Ufa will be included in next year’s schedule of VTB seminars”.