IIB was originally formed as a "venture investment fund". The bank sought out troubled long-term assets. It invested in them and then resold them. The bank became one of Russia's 10 largest banks and was the largest credit institution in terms of capital (175 billion rubles). It became a principal member of Visa International and MasterCard Worldwide, operating its own processing centre. In December 1998, the IIB increased its authorised capital to 10 billion rubles. A year later, shareholders invested another 15 billion rubles, raising its authorised capital to 25 billion rubles, just under $1 billion. Most other credit organisations rarely reached that level. The IIB almost caught up with Sberbank on the scale of its own funds and became the country's largest private bank. In January 2002, Pugachev resigned from IIB's board of directors. After the election, Pugachev held from 0-5 percent of assets). According to the Jones Day report, from 2002 the owner of the bank was D. Henderson-Stewart.