Former Russian BAT subsidiary completed 37-bln yuan swap operation in 2023

MOSCOW. April 17 (Interfax) - The former Russian subsidiary of British American Tobacco (BAT) became an active participant in the yuan swaps market last year.

JSC I.T.M.S., known as BAT-SPb until last December, reported in its annual report that it entered into currency swaps in 2023 "as a liquidity management tool, in particular, to generate interest income."

The volume of currency purchases and sales through swaps totaled 37.2 billion yuan, the report said. The weighted average purchase rate was 12.8621 rubles/yuan, while the sales rate was 12.8672 rubles.

Income from the purchase and sale of currency under swap transactions for 2023 reached 2.556 billion rubles, with a loss of 1.654 billion rubles, the company said in its report.

The Bank of Russia announced the launch of a new permanent instrument for the provision of yuan in January 2023, a swap transaction for the sale of yuan for rubles with their subsequent purchase for a period of one day. In March of this year, the Central Bank announced that at the beginning and end of each month it would temporarily double the maximum limit on transactions for currency swap transactions. On the first two and last two trading business days of each month, the maximum daily transaction volume would be 20 billion yuan (on other trading days the limit remains the same at 10 billion yuan).

A consortium led by local management bought BAT assets in Russia and Belarus last fall. The owner of JSC "I.T.M.S." is BFI Holding from the UAE; the beneficiaries of the company in the report are Andrei Osavolyuk and Sergei Kudinov.