By Andrei Skvarsky. Russian broker Renaissance Capital has hired Mert Yildiz from Kuwait China Investment Company as economist for Turkey, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Egypt. Yildiz, who will be based in London, worked as an economist at the Istanbul operation of Dutch bank ING before joining Kuwait China Investment Company, RenCap said in a statement. Continue Reading
VTB expects bailed-out Bank of Moscow to make rocketing profits
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russia’s state-owned VTB Group, which is taking over Bank of Moscow, expects the latter to make a minimum net profit of 30bn rubles for 2013, a sum equivalent to $954m at the current exchange rate. Bank of Moscow recorded losses of 68.3bn rubles ($2.17bn) for 2010. However, VTB expects the capital city’s… Continue Reading
J.P. Morgan lends $100m to Sberbank
By Andrei Skvarsky. J.P. Morgan has extended a five-year loan of $100m to Sberbank for the “pre-export financing of a corporate client in the Russian oil and gas sector”, Russia’s biggest lender said. The loan “comes at a time of uncertainty about the availability of liquidity in Europe and is testimony to our trusted relationship… Continue Reading
BNP Paribas replaces chief operating officer in Moscow
By Andrei Skvarsky. French bank BNP Paribas has appointed Palle Larsen as chief operating officer at its Russian subsidiary, having moved him over from a similar job in Paris. In his Moscow-based position Larsen, who is Danish, replaces Kieran MacMahon, who has been transferred to the French lender’s representative office in Turkey, according to Russian… Continue Reading
RenCap records 25% drop in London operation’s revenues for 2010
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russian brokerage Renaissance Capital’s London-based operation recorded a 25% drop in its revenues for last year due to a change of strategy. The London firm’s revenues plunged by $17m to $52m in 2010 due to its changed strategy of earning its income from commissions on a brokerage basis, rather than by profiting… Continue Reading
Troika Dialog hires Merrill’s Todd Berman to co-run investment banking
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russian broker Troika Dialog has hired Todd Berman from Bank of America Merrill Lynch as co-head of investment banking. Berman, who takes up his new role early next month, will share the job of running Troika’s investment banking business with Igor Sagiryan, who joined the Moscow-headquartered brokerage two years ago, the firm said in… Continue Reading
Russia’s sovereign private equity fund names advisers
By Andrei Skvarsky. The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a sovereign institution for promoting foreign investment in Russia’s barren private equity sector, has put together an international advisory board, appointing to it company chiefs and sovereign wealth top brass from various countries. The board’s nine members, who will work on a pro bono basis, include top figures… Continue Reading
Troika’s Vardanian quits as head of Skolkovo management school
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russian brokerage Troika Dialog’s founder and chief executive, Ruben Vardanian, has stepped down as president of the Kremlin-overseen Skolkovo Moscow School of Management. Vardanian, who will remain involved with the school, heading its Committee on International Cooperation and Strategic Partnerships, has been replaced by Andrey Rappoport, one of the institution’s founding partners.… Continue Reading
Russian sovereign fund for private equity support makes top hires
By Andrei Skvarsky. The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a sovereign fund for the promotion of foreign investment in Russia’s private equity sector, has announced a series of top hires, bringing in bankers from Troika Dialog, Alfa Group and other firms. Directorships have been handed to Richard Ogdon from Troika Dialog, Tagir Sitdekov from Alfa… Continue Reading
BREAKING NEWS: Kremlin gets rid of "business-friendly" Prokhorov
Eugene Kasevin, EM in Moscow Recent sabotage in Mikhail Prokhorov’s Right Cause party has taken a hard turn today when Russia’s biggest taxpayer was forced to withdraw his party membership along with his leadership. Mikhail Prokhorov, a billionaire whose assets include half of Russian brokerage Renaissance Capital, has publicly accused Vladislav Surkov, President Dmitry Medvedev’s first deputy chief… Continue Reading
WEAFER COMMENT: Moscow, twinned with Cushing
By Chris Weafer, Chief Strategist at Troika Dialog. On the face of it, there is little in common between the Russian capital, population 11.5 mln, and Cushing, Oklahoma, population 8,400. But they do have one important factor in common; Cushing is where the price of WTI is fixed, and over the past six months, the… Continue Reading
Putin-linked lender to buy out Bank St Petersburg
By Andrei Skvarsky. Bank St Petersburg, one of Russia’s biggest regional lenders, is planning to sell out to the Rossiya bank as state-controlled entities mop up privately held banks. Rossiya is controlled by Yury Kovalchuk, a man widely reputed as Putin’s “personal banker”. The two banks, both of which are based in St Petersburg, are… Continue Reading
RenCap hires Nomura's Shambayati to co-lead global markets
By Andrei Skvarsky. Moscow-based Renaissance Capital has hired Soroosh Shambayati as managing director and global co-head of markets from Japan’s Nomura. Shambayati will have responsibility for fixed income, currency and commodities (FICC) in Rencap’s key geographies of Russia, the CIS, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), Asia and Africa. At Nomura, he had been chairman of global emerging markets.… Continue Reading
Troika names Aton's Fedorova for business support role
Troika Dialog, the brokerage being acquired by state-controlled Sberbank, has appointed Irina Fedorova as director of business support. Fedorova, who last worked at Aton in a business support role, will be responsbile for supporting Troika’s private client division as well as “servicing private clients within the framework of the Sberbank merger”. Prior to Aton, she… Continue Reading
China to launch investment fund for Russia
By Andrei Skvarsky. China plans to launch a fund to help Chinese small and medium-sized firms to invest in Russia. China’s National Development and Reform Commission has invited Russia to join the fund when the latter becomes well-established, according to Chinese news agency Xinhua. Continue Reading
The Brits are fast fading in Russia as PM Cameron arrives
By Andrei Skvarsky. British banks HSBC and Barclays, along with oil major BP, are fading from Russia just as UK Prime Minister David Cameron arrives in Moscow on Monday to try to reverse a nadir in British-Russian relations. HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, has shut its modest Russian retail network after committing $200m for building it… Continue Reading
Sberbank parts company with head of treasury and financial markets dept
By Andrei Skvarsky. Sberbank has parted company with Andrei Golikov as one of its vice presidents and head of its department for treasury operations and financial markets. A statement by Russia’s biggest lender that announced Golikov’s departure did not disclose the reason for it. Golikov, who has spent 15 years at Sberbank, has repeatedly been… Continue Reading
Ex-MICEX boss Rybnikov put at helm of St Petersburg commodity exchange
By Andrei Skvarsky. Ex-head of MICEX Alexei Rybnikov has been appointed as president of the St Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX), a commodity trading floor. SPIMEX’s board of directors unanimously put the reins in the hands of Rybnikov, who headed JP Morgan Chase’s investment banking operation in Moscow and Russia’s National Depository Centre before joining… Continue Reading
VTB Capital hires Ilya Veller from UniCredit for equity sales role
By Andrei Skvarsky. VTB Capital has confirmed to EmergingMarkets.me that it has hired Ilya Veller from UniCredit Securities as senior manager for equity sales at its Moscow office. Veller had a brief six month tenure at UniCredit’s Moscow brokerage, where he headed the special situations group. He previously oversaw sales at Russia’s Aton Capital, which… Continue Reading
HSBC launches emerging markets ETF on the LSE
By Andrei Skvarsky. HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, has launched an emerging markets fund onto the London Stock Exchange. The Irish-domiciled HSBC MSCI Emerging Markets Exchange Trade Fund will replicate the performance of the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) emerging markets index, which tracks the performance of major companies in countries such as Brazil, Russia, China… Continue Reading
Sberbank buys 5% stake in Baturina’s Inteco
By Andrei Skvarsky. Sberbank is buying a 5% stake in construction company Inteco from Yelena Baturina, the wife of former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov. Binbank co-owner Mikhail Shishkhanov is buying the rest of the construction firm, which is wholly owned by Baturina and has its market value put at $1.2bn. Inteco’s sale to Shishkhanov and… Continue Reading
Nordic fund CapMan gets chunk of Siberian Web provider
By Andrei Skvarsky. CapMan, a Nordic private equity firm, has acquired 20% interest in Russian Internet service provider Siberian Networks and plans to boost the stake to 25% within months. Siberian Networks projects a turnover of about 15m euros ($21.1m) for 2011. One of the leading Web service providers in Siberia with more than 100,000… Continue Reading
Magnitsky mother to be questioned by her son’s alleged killers
By Andrei Skvarsky. Sergei Magnitsky’s mother has been summoned for an interrogation as part of the tax evasion case reopened against the Hermitage Capital lawyer in July, 20 months after his death in a Moscow jail. Natalia Magnitskaya will be questioned as a witness by police officers whom Hermitage accuses of torturing the anti-corruption lawyer… Continue Reading
GOLDMAN COMMENT: Swissy never lies
By Jim O’Neil, Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. In the context of the ongoing challenges in the US, the Euro Area and elsewhere, this week I have chosen to focus on the Swiss Franc currency. Throughout the market mayhem of August, and its subsequent carry over into the start of September, the Swiss Franc… Continue Reading
Bank of Georgia seeking premium London listing
By Andrei Skvarsky. Bank of Georgia is seeking a premium London Stock Exchange listing, which would open the former Soviet republic’s number one lender to a much broader range of investors. The firm plans to reincorporate as a UK holding company, to be called Newco. It will then come up with a proposal in the… Continue Reading
Merrill Lynch hires analyst from Troika
By Andrei Skvarsky. Bank of America Merrill Lynch has hired Olga Veselova from Russian brokerage Troika Dialog as an analyst for its Russian subsidiary. Veselova, who was an analyst at Bank of Moscow before joining Troika in 2007, took up her position at Moscow’s Merrill Lynch Securities yesterday, according to Interfax. Troika has parted company… Continue Reading
WEAFER COMMENT: New month – new hope
By Chris Weafer, Chief Strategist at Troika Dialog. Equity markets look set to extend recent gains after another positive session in the US and broadly based gains across Asia this morning. However, after such a strong run into the end of August, investors will likely adopt a more cautious approach until the important economic indicators,… Continue Reading
Alfa-Bank to part company with CEO Johann Jonach
By Andrei Skvarsky. Alfa-Bank chief executive Johann Jonach is going to quit Russia’s largest non-state lender in a month’s time. Jonach, who formerly worked at Raiffeisen Bank International AG, has opted against renewing his contract with Alfa, which expires in October, Vienna-based monthly Trend said, citing the top manager himself. Alfa declined… Continue Reading
S&P warns Russia about 'ambiguous' presidential coronation
By Marcus Williams. Global ratings agency Standard and Poor‘s yesterday warned that “an ambiguous succession process” leading up to next year’s elections was adding risks to a centrally managed economy. S&P affirmed Russia’s BBB long-term foreign currency sovereign rating and A-3 short-term rating with a stable outlook. However, the agency damned Russia’s current election process,… Continue Reading