Category Archives: Views

GOLDMAN SACHS COMMENT: Washington and Beijing

By Jim O’Neill, Chairman, Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Washington and Beijing. This week has been an important news week, at least for the media, for political developments in the US and China. I would question whether anything has materially changed as a result of the US election and the Chinese leadership handover. The stock markets… Continue Reading

Ex-Kremlin think tank predicts political turmoil in Russia

By Andrei Skvarsky. A think tank that used to be a strategic economic planning centre for the Kremlin argues that “growing discontent” with President Vladimir Putin and his government is likely to precipitate mounting nationwide public unrest. The forecast comes in a report released last week by the Centre for Strategic Research (CSR), a Moscow-based… Continue Reading

European Parliament urges visa ban, asset freeze for Magnitsky’s alleged killers

By Andrei Skvarsky. The European Parliament on Tuesday passed a non-binding resolution calling for tough European Union-wide sanctions against Russian officials blamed for the allegedly unlawful arrest of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer for British investment fund Hermitage Capital, and his death in custody in 2009. The resolution recommends that the EU Council, effectively the Union’s top… Continue Reading

Geneva’s Lombard Odier says eurozone breakup inevitable

By Andrei Skvarsky.  Geneva-based Lombard Odier, one of Europe’s largest private banking firms, predicts that the euro will survive as a currency, albeit significantly restructured, but that the eurozone will inevitably part company with some of its constituent countries. The currency needs restructuring if it is to survive, according to Paul Marson, a top Lombard… Continue Reading

Russia and commodity prices in the new IMF report

By Dieter Wermuth, Chief Economist, Wermuth Asset Management According to the International Monetary Fund, Russia’s real GDP will expand by 3.7 % y/y in 2012, and by 3.8% next year. Growth continues to be revised down in response to the slowdown of world output. It seems that the new medium term growth rate is in… Continue Reading

Bank of Georgia’s investment case marred by political uncertainty – RenCap

By Andrei Skvarsky. Renaissance Capital analysts warn that investing in Bank of Georgia, until now one of the best-performing banks within the boundaries of the former Soviet Union, poses some risks today due to post-election political uncertainty in its home country. Georgian Dream, a coalition that beat the ruling United National Movement (UNM) in Georgia’s parliamentary… Continue Reading

GOLDMAN SACHS COMMENT: Markets and Moods

By Jim O’Neill, Chairman, Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Markets and Moods. So, here’s the situation. The mood is grim.  A lot of economic data has turned grimmer, which makes many people so bearish about many things, markets included. Much of the “mood” centres on a sense of hopelessness about Europe, with the risk on/risk off… Continue Reading

Ex-adviser to Russian government: “zero prospect” of Moscow being international financial centre

By Andrei Skvarsky. Tim Reucroft, a London-based consultant who has advised Russia and other emerging markets on capital market infrastructures, has said the Kremlin’s plan to turn Moscow into an international financial centre has “zero prospect” of materialising. An IFC is all about cross-border flows, and so the Russians are wrong to be focusing on… Continue Reading

RenCap gains quicker access to Micex-RTS with GATElab module

By Andrei Skvarsky. Renaissance Capital has obtained much faster access to the Micex-RTS stock exchange this month by launching a software module developed by electronic trading solutions provider GATElab. By using GATE’s high frequency software trading module, a RenCap client would take a maximum of 130 microseconds to gain one way nic-to-nic access to Micex-RTS,… Continue Reading

RenCap says ruble’s decline no reason for anxiety

By Andrei Skvarsky. Renaissance Capital argues that this month’s 7.2% decline of the Russian ruble versus the dollar is not much to worry about. Various currencies have been going down against the dollar, and the ruble has been doing better than, for example, the Polish zloty, the Hungarian forint or the Czech koruna, which have… Continue Reading

AGC makes biggest-ever Middle East investment in Russia

By Andrei Skvarsky. AGC Equity Partners has acquired $175m interest in a major Russian generating company in what is seen as the largest-ever Middle East investment in Russia. The London-headquartered firm with a team in the Middle East is part of an international consortium that has bought a 26.43% blocking stake in Italian-controlled Enel OGK-5… Continue Reading

WERMUTH COMMENT: Putin’s challenge: falling oil prices

By Dieter Wermuth, Chief Economist, Wermuth Asset Management. As Putin has assumed office once again, dark clouds in the form of plunging oil prices and a recession in Western Europe are hanging over him. His third term as president is unlikely to benefit from a benign external environment. Investors are reminded that Russia has a… Continue Reading

GOLDMAN SACHS COMMENT: Apple, China and the Growth Markets

By Jim O’Neill, Chairman, Goldman Sachs Asset Management. This past week, I spent 3 days in the US, in New York and Chicago. The main purpose of my NY visit was to host our 2nd GSAM Growth Markets Summit, which was quite an event, with many interesting speakers, panels and a great list of clients.… Continue Reading

Will Putin 2.0 mean a return to the prosperity of the 2000s?

By Ian Pryde, founder and CEO of Eurasia Strategy & Communications in Moscow. Vladimir Putin is unlikely to deliver full-blown reform, the only way to dampen the impact of the predicted drop in oil prices on an economy heavily dependent on oil exports, Ian Pryde argues in his article, first published on the Russia Beyond… Continue Reading

GOLDMAN SACHS COMMENT: A Twist with Messrs Posen and Shirakawa

 By Jim O’Neill, Goldman Sachs Asset Management. This week, I was severely tempted to pursue the analogy of comparing 2012 with 2011 and 2010, especially as it relates to most peoples persistent belief that we live in a US-dominated world.  But these two gentlemen stopped me. Thanks to Adam and Masaaki . Mind you, if… Continue Reading

Investors should avoid Russia’s oil and gas sector – Wermuth

By Andrei Skvarsky. Russia’s oil and gas sector would be the wrong choice for an investor these days, according to Dieter Wermuth, chief economist at Wermuth Asset Management, a Russia-focused German fund manager. With global economic growth slowing down significantly, a world oil price that has quintupled since 2003 makes no sense economically and mainly… Continue Reading

GOLDMAN COMMENT: Europe Needs Growth, not More Austerity

Jim O’Neill, Chairman, Goldman Sachs Asset Management Late Friday, the S&P finally followed through with their early December 2011 threat and downgraded a number of European countries’ credit rating, including Austria and France, who lost their AAA status. This threat had been hanging  over the markets ever since the last EU Summit and, at least… Continue Reading

Houlihan Lokey is expanding its M&A team

Steven Tishman has joined Houlihan Lokey as Global Head of M&A. Previously Steven was co-head of U.S. M&A at Rothschild. Houlihan Lokey, one of the largest global private investment banks is currently taking steps to actively expand its services in Eastern Europe and the CIS. It currently covers these regions from European offices and have already completed several high-profile mandates in Russia, Kazakhstan and Eastern… Continue Reading

Some BRICs Built But More Still Needed

Jim O’Neill, Chairman, Goldman Sachs Asset Management Tomorrow, Wednesday, November 30 is the tenth anniversary of when I first mentioned the BRIC acronym when I published GS Global Economics Paper No: 66, “Building Better Global Economic BRICs.” As I am sure a number of readers now know, I am publishing a book to celebrate the… Continue Reading

RENCAP COMMENT: Time for a Bolder Central Bank of Russia

By Ivan Tcharkarov,  Chief Economist for Russia and the CIS at Renaissance Capital. The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) needs to cut rates to support economic growth. We have been very complimentary about the CBR’s newly adopted policy stance to allow more exchange rate flexibility, in an attempt to help cushion the economy from external shocks… Continue Reading

VTB to heavily benefit from Sechin’s privatisation initiative

 By Andrei Skvarsky. State-owned bank VTB would benefit seriously during its planned partial privatisation from a share pricing measure proposed by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, Renaissance Capital analysts argue. Sechin last week proposed an amendment to the 2011-2013 privatisation programme to ensure that the starting price of a state company in any privatisation deal should not be lower… Continue Reading

WEAFER COMMENT: Investment Dichotomy

By Chris Weager, Chief Strategist at Troika Dialog. “Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life” Pablo Picasso A right mess. The dominant issues affecting all global markets this week will again be the ongoing efforts to contain the euro zone debt crisis and news that the US Congress has failed to agree measures to… Continue Reading

INTERVIEW: Raiffeisen staying the course in Russia

By Andrei Skvarsky. Raiffeisen has no plans to follow its European counterparts by retreating from or retrenching in Russia, the Austrian lender’s top spokesman, Michael Palzer, tells EmergingMarkets.me. AS: Russia’s Sberbank is said to be eyeing the Russian assets of crisis-hit European banks, hoping to buy them cheaply. Has it offered to buy your Russian subsidiary?… Continue Reading