Four Gazprombank Executives Could Have Made €9 Million Buying Discounted Bonds Before Swap Announcements:

Four senior executives at Gazprombank Luxembourg could have made more than €9 million by buying deeply discounted Gazprom bonds after Western sanctions disrupted Russia’s financial markets in 2022.

The executives used personal loans from Gazprombank to buy the bonds in Europe and later exchange them for replacement securities in Russia at their original value, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.

Russian Bonds Became Stranded

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Western sanctions disrupted payments involving Russia’s financial system. Gazprom was not subject to the broadest EU sanctions, but its foreign-currency bonds became difficult to settle in Europe and some traded at about half their original value.

Internal communications at Gazprombank Luxembourg warned that Russian securities trades might not settle and that funds or securities could become blocked, according to documents reviewed by the FT.