Today in Russian Business – Oct. 17, 2008

First, Russia’s energy companies successfully lobbied for a bailout, now it is the airline industry. Amid economic woes, Sibir Energy announced it was moving beyond oil into real estate and leisure. Dmitry Medvedev has told his cabinet that their most urgent task was to repair “trust between creditor and debtor,” as the RTS dropped 9.52% and Micex slipped 9.11% due to continuing capital flight. Some lending is still happening: Avtovaz, one of the country’s largest automotive companies, is concluding negotiations with Vneshekonombank for a credit of $1 billion. In mining, Metalloinvest has ended merger talks with Kazakhmys, which could have created a $40bn (£20bn) metals group before commodities prices drove down the stock price by 25%. Alexei Kudrin announced that capital flight reached $33 billion for August.