By Marcus Svedberg, Chief Economist, East Capital.* Arguably it is not very easy to be an emerging market (EM) optimist these days. It seems like almost everything and everyone is against the group of markets that were once the darlings of investors. Tapering is the most obvious cause for pessimism and is the most important… Continue Reading
Tag Archives: Russia
EAST CAPITAL COMMENT: Was January’s emerging markets scare justified?
By Peter Elam Hakansson, Chairman and Head of Public Equity investment team, East Capital.* The first month of the year turned out to be a very difficult one for emerging markets, with a fear of tapering by the US Federal reserve and a slowdown of the Chinese economy leading to a sharp sell-off of emerging… Continue Reading
Sberbank hires banker from UBS to run HNWI group
By Andrei Skvarsky. Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender, has hired Alla Aleynikova from Swiss bank UBS to head the group servicing high-net-worth individuals. {{{?}}} Aleynikova is based in Moscow in her new job with Sberbank Private Banking, having relocated from New York, where she worked at UBS’s international division. Previously she spent 11 years at Citigroup… Continue Reading
Russia’s RenCap hosts 5th pan-Africa investor conference
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russia’s Renaissance Capital has opened its fifth annual pan-Africa investor conference in Lagos. {{{?}}} This year’s conference brings together about 400 guests, including 200 investors representing global and frontier funds. The delegates also include senior managers from some of Africa’s largest companies and senior government figures, among them Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi… Continue Reading
Ex-Citi banker gets senior job at Sberbank’s CEE unit
By Andrei Skvarsky. Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender, has hired Tamas Haiman from Citibank as head of global markets at Sberbank Europe AG, its Central and Eastern European operation. {{{?}}} Haiman, who joins Sberbank on February 3, will be based in Vienna and report to Igor Strehl at Sberbank Europe and Alexey Zaytsev at the global… Continue Reading
Sberbank chiefs talk to analysts
By Andrei Skvarsky. Top executives of Sberbank have spoken to more than 25 researchers from various investment banks at an annual meeting between the management of Russia’s largest lender and banking analysts. {{{?}}} Deputy chief executive Alexander Morozov briefed the audience on key projections for Sberbank’s performance this year. “The main priority of Sberbank is… Continue Reading
Sberbank raises adviser to vice-presidential seat
By Andrei Skvarsky. Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender, has promoted one of its senior advisers, Teimur Shternlib, to the position of vice-president. {{{?}}} Shternlib has been an adviser to chief operating officer Lev Khasis at Sberbank, which he joined last year after roles as chief investment officer at Russia’s Х5 Retail Group and IT director at… Continue Reading
GUEST COMMENT: CIS/Ukraine macro-politics: investor scenarios
{{{?}}} By Chris Weafer, Founding Partner, Macro-Advisory, Moscow. Chris Weafer’s career includes top research positions with Sberbank, Troika Dialog, UralSib, Alfa Bank and NatWest. Mr Weafer, who has worked in Russia for more than fifteen years, is the author of a wide variety of articles about Russia, Central Asia and the trend in macro oil. He… Continue Reading
RenCap hires Merrill banker for senior Europe sales job
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russian brokerage Renaissance Capital has hired Amr Aboushaban from Bank of America Merrill Lynch as vice-president in its equities sales team. {{{?}}} Aboushaban’s main responsibility will be client coverage in London and across Europe, but his duties will include helping to build out coverage in the Middle East and North Africa, RenCap… Continue Reading
Sberbank hires Swiss bankers as commodities unit traders
By Andrei Skvarsky. Sberbank CIB, the investment unit of Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank, has hired two Swiss bankers as senior traders for the commodities unit of its global markets department. {{{?}}} Sergio Soler, who comes from Swiss bank Julius Bär, has been appointed as senior precious metals trader, and Franck-Eric Fischer joins from Geneva-based consultancy… Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: MNI Indicators chief economist Philip Uglow comments on Russia’s economy in interview with EmergingMarkets.me
How would you explain Russia’s current slowdown? Can it be that the global crisis has finally got to Russia – it seems that what happens in Western economies takes a while to reach Russia? {{{?}}} The global economic crisis has clearly had a negative impact on Russia – there’s no getting away from that. Russia… Continue Reading
MNI Indicators: Russian companies’ confidence jumps up
By Andrei Skvarsky. Deutsche Boerse’s data-providing subsidiary MNI Indicators says business confidence among some of Russia’s largest companies bounced back sharply in January from a “record low” in December but warns that the upturn may be temporary. {{{?}}} The MNI Russia Business Indicator rocketed to 57.9 in January from 45.5 in December, to register its… Continue Reading
UBS hires ex-Morgan Stanley bankers as Russia chiefs
By Andrei Skvarsky. UBS has hired two senior former Morgan Stanley bankers to run its Russian operation. {{{?}}} Rair Simonyan is joining the Swiss bank as chairman and Elena Titova as chief executive of its Russian subsidiary, UBS said in a statement. Both are coming over from Russian Regional Development Bank, which is owned by… Continue Reading
VTB chief: West’s Russian policies run against globalisation trends
By Andrei Skvarsky. The president of state-controlled VTB Group, Russia’s second-largest bank, has accused the West of a “patronising”, arrogant and standoffish attitude to Russia, which he argues is not the way to behave in these times of globalisation. {{{?}}} “It sometimes seems that politicians of countries that ought to have much in common are… Continue Reading
Russia may switch clocks back for winter
By Andrei Skvarsky. A draft law has been introduced to Russia’s parliament to restore the practice of moving the clocks one hour forward in the spring and one hour back in the autumn, Russian media said on Monday. {{{?}}} The proposed law is bound to be hailed by stock exchange traders in the West who… Continue Reading
Russia’s Renaissance hires ex-BofA banker to run Africa sales
By Andrei Skvarsky. Renaissance Capital, one of Russia’s leading privately owned investment banks, has confirmed it has hired Robert Lamprecht, a former senior manager at Bank of America, as head of African sales. {{{?}}} Lamprecht will be based in Johannesburg, where one of RenCap’s three African offices are located. He will report to Florian Hellmich,… Continue Reading
VTB makes clean break with Fitch over "lack of professionalism”
By Andrei Skvarsky. VTB Group, Russia’s second-largest bank, announced on Tuesday that it was severing all its relations with Fitch Ratings because of the rating agency’s “continued lack of professionalism”. {{{?}}} The move followed Fitch’s lowering VTB’s issuer-default rating one level on January 10, which the bank argued was groundless, claiming the agency had had… Continue Reading
An intelligent , English CV Template
{{{?}}} For professionals working in a new culture, it’s crucial that employers can easily grasp the value of your past experience to them and their company. Unfortunately, there is a lot of terrible advice on the internet and some terrible ‘standard’ formats. The Europass CV template is the most common and probably the worst and… Continue Reading
Russia tries to revive interest in struggling stock market
By Melissa Part. 2013 seemed to end on a grim note for Russia’s economy with consumer confidence hitting a new low. {{{?}}} The country’s economy has had a bumpy start to 2014 too. The recent release of high-profile political prisoners does not seem to have rallied investor interest in Russia’s stock market. Russia recently released… Continue Reading
Moscow Exchange reports 24% trade volume increase for 2013
By Andrei Skvarsky. Moscow Exchange has said its trading volumes grew 24% last year, reaching 46.6 trillion rubles ($1.4 trillion). {{{?}}} All of the exchange’s units – its trading floors for stocks, Russian depositary receipts (RDRs), corporate and government bonds and derivatives, and its forex and money markets – recorded volume increases, the bourse, which… Continue Reading
Sberbank CIB’s 2013 trade finance, documentary deals worth $43.5bn
By Andrei Skvarsky. Sberbank CIB, the investment arm of Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank, has announced it carried through “record” numbers of trade finance and documentary operations in 2013, putting the total volume of the deals at $43.5bn. {{{?}}} The investment firm said in a statement its documentary operations topped the $33bn mark last year, with… Continue Reading
Sberbank: consumer confidence in Russia plummets
By Andrei Skvarsky. A survey by Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender, suggests that consumer confidence in Russia has plummeted towards the year-end after being stable from March to September. {{{?}}} The proportion of price-sensitive customers has grown, savings have dwindled, unemployment has edged up, and companies are making fewer hires, according to December’s issue of Sberbank… Continue Reading
Deutsche Boerse poll: Russian companies' confidence at “record low”
By Andrei Skvarsky. A Deutsche Boerse survey suggests that business confidence among major Russian companies hit “a record low” this month as did production and orders, marking “a miserable end to what has been a terrible year for the Russian economy”. {{{?}}} Global business data provider MNI Indicators, a Deutsche Boerse subsidiary, said its MNI… Continue Reading
Morgan Stanley: weak investment main cause of Russian slowdown
By Andrei Skvarsky. Morgan Stanley believes poor investment is the main cause of Russia’s decelerating economic growth. {{{?}}} Weak investment has been more powerful as a growth decelerator than robust global oil prices have been as an accelerator, the bulge bracket bank’s chief economist for Russia, Jacob Nell, argued at a briefing in Moscow last… Continue Reading
Moscow forum discusses high-tech investment
By Andrei Skvarsky. RVC, a Russian state-owned high-tech investment company, has helped organise an international forum last week that looked at ways of giving an impetus to Russia’s technology industries. {{{?}}} The role of corporate venture funds, high-tech investment vehicles set up by large corporations, was among issues raised at Moscow’s First Corporate Venture Summit,… Continue Reading
Sberbank hires ex-RBS banker as head of FX
By Andrei Skvarsky. Sberbank has hired Frederic Blondel, a former Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and ABN AMRO banker, as head of foreign exchange and flow derivatives corporate sales at Sberbank CIB, the investment arm of Russia’s biggest lender. {{{?}}} Blondel, who will be based in Moscow and has more than 20 years’ experience in… Continue Reading
VTB Capital raises $95.2m by selling stake in IT firm on NYSE
By Andrei Skvarsky. Russia’s VTB Capital has raised $95.2m by selling its stake in Russian software development and IT outsourcing company Luxoft in a secondary public offering (SPO) on the New York Stock Exchange in which the Moscow-based bank was one of the bookrunners. {{{?}}} The offering was more than three times oversubscribed and attracted… Continue Reading
Deutsche Bank selling Russian subsidiary to Aton
By Andrei Skvarsky. Deutsche Bank has agreed to sell its Russian subsidiary Deutsche UFG Capital Management (DUCM) to Russian investment group Aton in what would purportedly make the latter one of Russia’s biggest asset managers. {{{?}}} The deal, which needs approval from Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service, would make Aton the 100% owner of DUCM, an… Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: Tinkoff shares plummet 40%
By Andrei Skvarsky. Tinkoff Credit Systems stock plummeted 40% to $9 per share on Friday on news that Russia’s government is planning a law to restrict distant distribution of credit cards by banks. {{{?}}} It would then only be possible to obtain a card from a bank office. “This is only one of many initiatives… Continue Reading