By Andrei Skvarsky.
Barclays Capital, the British investment bank, has made its most senior Moscow hire since landing Bob Foresman last year to lead its renewed assault on the Russian market.
Vladimir Pantyushin joined Barclay Capital’s Russian operation as chief economist after a role as head of research for Russia and the CIS at Jones Lang Lasalle, a Chicago-based real estate services and investment management firm. Before that he had held top research jobs at Moscow investment bank Renaissance Capital (Rencap), Russian lender Rosbank and the International Copper Association.
Barclays last year hired Foresman from Rencap, where he had served as deputy chairman, to spearhead its bid to become the leading foreign investment bank in Russia.
The British institution thus far has been very timid in building out and equity team on the ground but is understood to be actively pushing through mandates. The bank narrowly lost to Rencap last month in a bid to hire Will Abbott as an equity sales head.
On Tuesday, Barclays analysts in London initiated coverage of Russia’s leading oil and gas majors, issuing a report that contained a positive outlook for the sector with Rosneft named as top pick.
The team is led by Ilya Balabanovsky, who previously worked at JP Morgan as an oil analyst. Barclays insiders say the bank is keen to hire analysts on the ground to cover Russian blue chips.
Barclays, which acquired Russian lender Expobank in March 2008 for a top-of-the-market price of $745m, is retrenching from regional retail business after selling up to Renaissance Group.
The bank said it remains committed to expanding retail and investment banking in Russia as well as launching its Barclays Wealth platform for rich Russkis.
Pantyushin, whose current duties include co-authoring reports for clients, told EmergingMarkets.me that his macroeconomic take on today’s Russia was essentially “positive”. The Yale-educated economist refused to be described as a contrarian but said there were points on which he holds non-typical views.
