Today in Russian Business – May 20, 2011

Vladimir Putin is in Minsk today to discuss the details of a potential loan to the financially insolvent Lukaschenka regime.  Alexei Kudrin is apparently keeping the state’s hopes dangling, by failing to confirm that the loan will go through.  The loan will, this report suggests, come with stringent conditions, namely privatization.  Russia and other ex-Soviet states have backed Grigory Marchenko, head of Kazakhstan’s central bank, to run the International Monetary Fund following the resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn.  Moscow’s tally of the unemployed could grow by up to 10,000 this summer when the Luzhniki market closes.  Doing little for the image of Russian businesses, ‘Yandex’s non-Russianness is something the Internet group and its advisers are trying to emphasise ahead of its initial public offering on New York’s Nasdaq market early next week’ says the FT.  The company, which accounts for 65% of Russia’s online search market, will be the subject of the biggest internet IPO since Google.  Promsvyazbank, among Russia’s top-10 lenders by assets, may hold an initial public offering in 2012.  On the consolidation of Russia’s banks.