On the eve of the invasion of Ukraine last year, the largest Russian bank was deep in talks about selling its largest European asset.
The bank’s negotiators held a 12-hour marathon discussion with a prominent Hungarian investor, who was ready to pay hundreds of millions of euros for their stake in Fortenova, a retail group that is Croatia’s top-grossing company.
They had prepared meticulously and had the approvals from various international bureaucracies. But when they woke up the next day and gathered for breakfast, news of the war flashing across everyone’s screens left them clueless about what to do next.
“They decided to wait,…
