Today in Russian Business – May 12, 2011

The Kremlin has refused to give cash-strapped neighbor Belarus a bailout loan, suggesting instead it privatize state assets and seek assistance from the IMF.  Intergeo, the copper and nickel company owned by billionaires Mikhail Prokhorov and Maxim Finsky, hopes to raise ‘definitely over C$1 billion, if not over C$5 billion’ in an IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange by the end of the year.  The FT reports on why the failure of the Russian helicopters IPO is a wasted opportunity.  Why Amazon, the online retailer whose catchment area reaches as far as war zones, will not set up shop in Russia.  Vladimir Putin foresees Russia becoming one of the world’s top five economies in the next decade, and has emphasized that innovation and higher efficiency should be at the forefront of its economic development.  In an oft-seen example of vehicular patriotism, the Prime Minister has given Lada’s new model, the Granta, (sold as ‘the people’s car’) a test drive – shame he couldn’t get it started.