Grizzly Research shorts Raiffeisen Bank, alleging $1.2B in sanctions-entangled Russian trade

Short-selling firm Grizzly Research has taken aim at Raiffeisen Bank International, publishing a detailed report that accuses the Austrian lender’s Russian subsidiary of facilitating over $1 billion in trade tied to Western sanctions restrictions. RBI shares dropped roughly 9% on the day the report landed. The core allegation: Grizzly claims that AO Raiffeisenbank, RBI’s Moscow-based subsidiary, has been linked to $1.191 billion in trade that intersects with sanctions imposed by the EU, US, UK, and Switzerland. That figure alone would raise eyebrows, but one subset makes the accusation particularly pointed. Rifle scopes and missile components According to Grizzly’s report, roughly €106.75 million of those trade flows involved goods on the Common High Priority List. That’s the catalog of sensitive technologies Western governments have flagged as potentially usable in military applications, including items like rifle scopes and components for tanks and missiles. Grizzly CEO Siegfried Eggert described RBI’s Russia business as “very active” during a CNBC interview on the same day the report was published. The trapped cash problem The second major thread in Grizzly’s report concerns mon...