OREANDA-NEWS. April 26, 2012. The opening ceremony of a SOGAZ subsidiary took place in the Republic of Serbia on April 23. The new company was named after the city where its headquarters are located - SOGAZ Novi Sad. The co-founders of the subsidiary are SOGAZ (51% of capital) and OJSC Serbiagas (49% of capital), leader of Serbian gas industry.

The ceremony was participated in by Duchan Bayatovich, general director, Serbiagas; Evgeniy Logovinskiy and Alexey Leonenko, deputy chairmen of the Board, SOGAZ; Alexey Smertin, marketing director, as well as Evgeniy Naletov, general director, SOGAZ Novi Sad.

According to the general director of Serbiagas, the opening ceremony became “another piece in the huge mosaic of economic cooperation between Russia and Serbia”, along with the construction of the South Stream pipeline, Banatski Dvor underground gas storage, and other projects.

In his speech, Mr Logvinovskiy emphasized that SOGAZ Novi Sad was the first foreign insurance company founded by SOGAZ, and the choice of Serbia seemed logical, because a number of major customers of the Group, such as Gazprom, Gazprom Oil, Zarubezhneft, had already been operating in the country. “The founding of SOGAZ-Serbia will enable us to realize all opportunities for insuring the risks of our corporate customers actively operating in the Republic of Serbia. We also believe that in the future the company will turn into a universal insurer that will be able to work both with major enterprises and in mass market segments and to render a broad range of insurance services, as well as to compete successfully with leading insurance companies,” - said Evgeniy Logvinovskiy.

Evgeniy Naletov, general director, SOGAZ Novi Sad, expressed his hope that the founding of a Russian-Serbian insurance company would strengthen the economic ties between two countries and will not only facilitate successful operation of Russian companies in Serbia, but will also help Serbian companies enter Russian markets.

SOGAZ made a decision to enter the Serbian insurance market in early 2010. In December 2011 the new company received a license from the National Bank of Serbia. The authorized capital of SOGAZ Novi Sad is 6 mln euros. The company plans to open a representative office in the capital city of Serbia, Belgrade. The total amount of investments in the project is expected to reach 7.5-8 mln euros in the upcoming three years. Half of this sum will be provided by SOGAZ. The share of the new company in the Serbian insurance market (except for life insurance) is planned to reach 3% at the first stage.