By Andrei Skvarsky. The VTB group, Russia’s second biggest lender, has sold stakes of 0.003% to its deputy president Herbert Moos and VTB Capital chief executive Yuri Soloviev. The two stakes are the biggest chunks of VTB to be owned by top managers of the group. VTB president Andrei Kostin holds 0.0018% interest in the… Continue Reading
VTB announces “strategic investment” in Deripaska firm
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russia’s VTB Capital has bought a 4.35% stake in energy-related firm En+ Group from oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element, an acquisition described by VTB as a “strategic investment”. VTB said in a statement it had paid $500m for the stake. “We believe that En+ has an immense growth potential that is primarily… Continue Reading
GOLDMAN SACHS COMMENT: Who would you want in EMU?
By Jim O’Neill, Chairman, Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Western sovereign debt issues rolled on again last week, with fierce competition between the US and the Euro Area for attention. As President Obama and Congress struggle to reach a budget compromise ahead of the debt ceiling deadline, two ratingagencies made it clear that failure to make… Continue Reading
GOLDMAN SACHS COMMENT: A messy start to July
By Jim O’Neill, Chairman, Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Just when it seemed things were shifting back to the optimists’ camp, Friday’s news about the state of the world threw another spanner in the works. In addition to a very disappointing US nonfarm payrolls report, Italy came into the spotlight in the European crisis. Subsequently, the earliest of the June… Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: HSBC hires Zhukov from Nomura as head of research
By Andrei Skvarsky. HSBC has hired Vladimir Zhukov from Nomura as head of research in ramping up its investment banking arm in Moscow after deciding to sell its retail operations in Russia. Zhukov confirmed to EmergingMarkets.me that he had started work as head of Russian equity research and metals and mining analyst at the British bank,… Continue Reading
Troika Dialog launches Internet-focused fund
Bt Andrei Skvarsky. Russian brokerage Troika Dialog has launched a fund to capitalise on booming investor appetite for Russian Internet and high-tech companies. The Troika Dialog Global Internet open-ended retail fund, which aims to achieve mid-term capital appreciation, will invest in Russian, foreign and global firms, Troika said in a statement. Yandex, operator of Russia’s… Continue Reading
Renaissance hires Cherny from Interros, Goldman's Barinstein
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russian brokerage Renaissance Capital has hired two senior bankers to cover operations in Russia, the CIS and Central and Eastern Europe. Anton Cherny has joined as the London-based head of business development. He worked for Renaissance as head of capital markets from 2005 to 2008, having previously held a senior corporate finance… Continue Reading
Third Rome's Kogan joins Moscow Partners broker
By Andrei Skvarsky. Former Third Rome senior partner Yevgeny Kogan has become managing director and a partner at Moscow Partners, an investment firm that plans a major advance into financial markets after years of relatively low activity. Kogan left Third Rome on June 30 over strategic differences with the top management of the Moscow-based wealth… Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: Otkritie hires ex-Central Bank economist
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russian brokerage Otkritie has hired Polina Badasen, a former economist at the Russian Central Bank, as an economist for Russia and the CIS. Badasen’s duties at the Central Bank included recommendations for exchange rate and interest rate policies and liquidity forecasts for the banking sector. In her Otkritie job, Badasen backs up… Continue Reading
Putin and Connie the labrador to be Russia’s next tandem, say EM.me readers
By Andrei Skvarsky. The majority of respondents in a recent EmergingMarkets.me online poll expected Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to be Russia’s next president and a vast proportion thought he would have just a figurehead prime minister if he moved back into the Kremlin. The view that “Putin and Connie the labrador” (the premier’s pet dog)… Continue Reading
GUEST COMMENT: Khodorkovsky Trial Exposes Reform Progress
By James Beadle from Market-Melange.com Since 2003 former Yukos executives Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev have been incarcerated in Russia on charges of tax evasion. At present, as their eight year stint enters its final stages, the two are on trial once more, charged with stealing millions of tonnes of oil (reputedly the same oil… Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: Rencap hires Deutsche Bank's Abbott to co-run equity sales
By Andrei Skvarsky. Renaissance Capital has hired Will Abbott as co-head of equity domestic sales in the latest in a string of big name hires. Abbott, who previously headed Deutsche Bank’s sales and trading business in Russia, shares the job of running the Moscow-based investment firm’s equity domestic sales with Ruslan Babaev, Rencap spokesman Quinn… Continue Reading
Swedish investment firm closing its Russia real estate fund
By Andrei Skvarsky Stockholm-based investment company East Capital Explorer has decided to close its real estate fund for Russia as the unit has received no investments since it opened in July 2008. When the global financial crisis broke out, the company, whose area of operations is Eastern Europe, decided to keep its Russian Property Fund… Continue Reading
Nick Jordan makes a comeback as head of UBS
By Ivan Anderzhanov Nick Jordan, the former head of Lehman Brothers in Moscow, has made a surprising comeback as the head of Russia and CIS for Swiss bank UBS. Jordan, who was allegedly brought to Lehman from Deutsche Bank for $10m over years, had been in limbo for the past year after losing out in… Continue Reading
Rencap’s Aganbegyan quits Rencap to join Micex
By Ivan Anderzhanov Ruben Aganbegyan, the former president of Renaissance Capital, is leaving the investment bank to takeover as president at Micex, the largest Russian stock exchange. Aganbegyan, who was demoted in February this year following a shake-up by Rencap founder Stephen Jennings, will take up his new role on June 21. He replaces Konstantin… Continue Reading
Barclays considers selling Russian banks to Renaissance
By Ivan Anderzahnov UK bank Barclays may offload its Russian regional retail banking network to a unit of Renaissance Group. Barclays is in talks about selling 12 regional branches to Renaissance Credit, the consumer finance arm of the investment banking group Renaissance, according to Russian daily Kommersant. The British giant acquired Russian lender Expobank in… Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: Sberbank hires Romaev as head of new debt unit
By Andrei Skvarsky Russia’s largest lender Sberbank has hired Dmitry Romaev as head of its new debt capital markets unit for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (CEEMEA) from Otkritie. Romaev, who was previously chief financial officer at Otkritie, said the unit had already hired three other bankers to work on large… Continue Reading
Half of Russian bankers not paid bonuses, report
By Ivan Anderzhanov More than half of Russian bankers were not paid a bonus for last year, according to a survey of 160 foreign and domestic financial institutions by recruiter Antal Russia. Just 47 percent of bankers got 2009 payouts which were doled out in the spring of this year. Many financiers were paid nothing… Continue Reading
Exclusive: Deutsche Bank back in the hiring game in Russia ?
By Andrei Skvarsky Deutsche Bank has recently hired Igor Sorokin from Troika Dialog, appointing him as vice president in charge of structuring. The German bank seems to be back in the market for new hires following yesterday’s announcement of two analyst hires, George Buzhenitsa and Natalia Smirnova, from UniCredit Securities. Other rivals have so far… Continue Reading
Fund Flows: Sentiment is Finely (Dangerously) Balanced
By Chris Weafer, Chief Strategist at UralSib Capital Waiting for clarity. Fund investors appear to have taken a sanguine view of global market volatility over the past week. They have remained largely on the sidelines while waiting for a clearer picture to emerge. According to the data supplied by EPFR Global, in the week ended… Continue Reading
Troika Dialog: the best investment bank in Russia ?
By Ivan Anderzhanov Troika Dialog has been awarded the gong of best investment bank in Russia in the recent Global Finance awards. In a statement, Troika said it currently leads Russian debt capital market league tables in terms of volume, number of issues and market share. Last we checked, VTB Capital may have had some… Continue Reading
Exclusive: VTB hires Jaeckel as deputy head of quant research
By Andrei Skvarsky Russia’s VTB Capital bank has recently hired Peter Jaeckel as deputy head of quantitative research at its London office. Jaeckel combines the job with the position as managing director of OTC Analytics, a British-based financial derivatives analysis company he has founded after a four-year stint as a senior analyst with ABN AMRO.… Continue Reading
BofA Merrill Lynch boost EMEA research with three hires
By Marcus Williams BofA Merrill Lynch has beefed up its EMEA research platform with three hires as part of a new EMEA economics and fixed income strategy group. Arko Sen joins the group with seven years of experience in emerging EMEA fixed income strategy, most recently at Barclays Capital, along with Jean-Michel Saliba who has… Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: Tatiana Orlova quits as ING’s senior economist for Russia
By Andrei Skvarsky Tatiana Orlova has quit Dutch bank ING as its Moscow-based senior analyst for Russia and the CIS. A spokeswoman for ING Wholesale Banking Russia confirmed Orlova’s departure to EmergingMarkets.me but said the bank would not disclose whether she had left for a new job. Before joining ING in autumn 2007, Orlova spent… Continue Reading
COMMENT: Government mulls protectionist moves to protect industries from ruble strength
By Vladimir Osakovsky, Head of Macroeconomic Analysis and Research at Unicredit Securities Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said that the Russian government might raise import tariffs and subsidize industries to keep Russian industry competitive, Bloomberg reports. He said that the ruble is likely to appreciate over the next several years and the government… Continue Reading
Fleming hires Troika Dialog duo in expansion
By Andrei Skvarsky London-based asset management company Fleming Family & Partners (FF&P) has hired two former managers for Troika Dialog and one from Trust Bank in an expansion of its Russian business. Alexander Yakubov, previously chief equity market analyst at Russian investment bank Trust, was appointed a managing director and strategist at the Moscow-based subsidiary,… Continue Reading
VTB to advertise on the BBC
By Ivan Anderzhanov In a further sign of a thawing in Anglo-Russo relations, VTB Capital is to sponsor a major series looking at Russian business to be shown on the venerable British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The series, which will begin transmitting this month, will focus on business across Russia, examining people, companies and products. VTB… Continue Reading
COMMENT: What happens with Russian market in May & June 2010 ?
By Mark Rubinstein, Deputy Head of Research at IFC Metropol Traditionally, May and June are not the strongest months for the Russian market. In the past four years, only once, in 2008, the market was able to demonstrate growth over this period. But I think that this year will be an “exception” again, and the… Continue Reading
BoFA Merill Lynch hires Nomura's Meissner as EMEA head
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has lured investment banking rainmaker Christian Meissner from Nomura. Meissner will report to Michael Rubinoff and Purna Saggurti, co-heads of global investment banking, and drive the growth of the investment banking franchise across EMEA, according to a statement today. He will sit on the global corporate & investment banking operating… Continue Reading