Atanas Bostandjiev

Atanas Bostandjiev doesn’t need any introduction. He is the founder and Chief Executive and Senior investment officer at GemCorp. With soaring career history, he was a former partner at Goldman Sachs and most recently the UK and International CEO of VTB Capital. Before that, he was managing director at Merrill Lynch. The guy often termed as “Goldman” banker has remained the face of several financial firms internationally. Under him, these companies have flourished and have expanded in leaps and bounds. The growth was huge and remarkable. More recently the UK and International CEO of VTB Capital has been joined by a group of experienced emerging markets investment professionals at GEMCORP. The firm has so far raised $500 million from European institutional investors with a lock-up period of five years.

Atanas is responsible for the overall management of the firm and in particular the origination, execution, and risk management of investments. He is a member of the Investment Committee.

Atanas Bsotandjiev’s career graph

Bostandjiev joined VTB in 2011 and promptly announced some exuberant growth plans. Under the Bostandjiev masterplan, revenues generated by the Russian bank’s international operations were supposed to grow from 6% to 30% of VTB’s total. To achieve this, he declared in June 2011 that VTB would be “competing for talent with the best Western firms” and hiring bankers in Europe, Asia, and the U.S.A.

Bostandjiev brings considerable expertise to the firm, having been the co-head of rates and foreign exchange sales in Europe at Goldman Sachs, before moving to the investment banking arm of Russian state-owned VTB Bank in 2011. He left the bank in July this year.

In the year 2012, VTB increased its manpower by 40%. VTB Capital offers a full range of investment banking products and services, focusing on arranging operations in the debt, equity, and global commodities markets, developing private investments, investment management, advising clients on M&A and equity capital markets deals in Russia and internationally.

Also, Bostandjiev aims to position Gemcorp as an access point for institutional investors who are hoping to invest in emerging market sovereign debt and private sectors. Gemcorp will headquarter in London with 17 staff and will target the financial services, natural resources, infrastructure and sovereign sectors.

Moving ahead

VTB Capital, the investment banking arm of Russia’s second-largest banking group, has opened a Hong Kong office and is eyeing business opportunities involving an increasing number of Russian companies planning to list on the local bourse.

Atanas Bostandjiev, VTB’s chief executive for Britain and international markets, said the bank secured a licence from the Securities and Futures Commission at the end of last month to operate an investment banking and financial advisory business in Hong Kong.

It is the second Asian office for VTB, which opened its doors in Singapore two years ago.

Finally

Bostandjiev suggested that the Hong Kong market is an important gateway to capture mainland Chinese investors. This is an important step in our strategy to expand in Asia by providing a platform to help Russian companies issue equities or bonds in Hong Kong.