 By summer 1996, major packages of shares in some of Russia's largest firms had been transferred to a small number of major banks, thus allowing a handful of powerful banks to acquire substantial ownership shares over major firms at shockingly low prices.These deals were effectively giveaways of valuable state assets to a few powerful, well-connected, and wealthy financial groups.The concentration of immense financial and industrial power, which loans for shares had assisted, extended to the mass media.