The Bailout Trap

First Fridman, then Deripaska. Now a report in Reuters points out the obvious fact that the acceptance of corporate welfare in Russia is a Faustian bargain: The billionaires have transferred stakes in some of their most prized firms from Western banks to the Russian state as collateral, handing the Kremlin the means to grab the […]

Russia’s Minority Shareholders Panicking

The RUXX Research Department has produced a new report related to foreign investors’ increasing concerns over the Russian business environment, with a focus on the dispute between minority shareholders of power generator TGK-4 and billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov (photo), who reneged on an agreement for a share buyout following the economic crisis, thanks to a special […]

Turkmenistan’s Gas Bonanza

(AFP/Getty Images) The Financial Times is reporting that an independent audit of Turkmenistan’s much lauded South Iolatan field has been completed, confirming it as one of the five largest deposits of natural gas in the world, boasting reserves more than twice the size of Russia’s (in)famous Shtokman Field in the Barents Sea. Jonathan Stern of […]

LSE Scratches Plans for Moscow Office

Just a few years ago, initial public offerings from Russia were all the rage on the London Stock Exchange, as well as its junior index, the AIM, accounting for the City’s chief competitive advantage of listing over Wall Street. Until the new rules were implemented in 2006, any given Russian company could launch an IPO […]

Video: Russia’s GDP Forecast Slashed

The Rise of Russia’s State Oligarchism

This one comes from Prof. Craig Pirrong on the Streetwise Professor: In Darkness at Dawn, David Satter claimed that Yeltsin’s young liberal economists were actually prisoners of their Soviet educations. They believed Marxist dogma about primitive capitalist accumulation, and that any transition to capitalism would inevitably entail the enrichment of those with the least scruples. […]

Svetlana Bakhmina’s Right to Mercy

Thanks to everyone who signed the petition to free Svetlana Bakhmina yesterday – it appears that the number of signatures is rapidly approaching 80,000. It would be great to 100,000, so please forward this one around. Today the columnist Alexander Arkhangelsky at RIA Novosti (!) argues that the release of Bakhmina would be the state’s […]

Energy Blast – Oct 30, 2008

Russia’s oil majors are putting pressure on the case for tax cuts in the oil sector, warning of a possible drop in output next year. Sibir Energy’s London High Court ownership dispute with Roman Abramovich has come out in the billionaire’s favor. Peter Mandelson has called to attention the ‘ultimate perversity’ of wasting energy in […]

Today in Russian Business – Oct 30, 2008

The financial crisis is making itself felt in job losses. The Kremlin is trying to limit the amount of foreign debt taken on by its oligarchs in an attempt to prevent Russian companies from ending up in foreign hands. United Company RusAl will receive a massive $4.5 billion bailout fund – almost half of the […]

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Oct 30, 2008

TODAY: Duma votes to station troops in Georgia’s breakaway regions; WWF report pessimistic on Russia’s environmental footprint; Khodorkovsky appeal rejected; judges abusing rights to close trials. Russia’s State Duma has unanimously voted to ratify treaties with Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, allowing Moscow to station 7,600 troops there ‘to protect them from […]