War of words escalates at Russia’s Norilsk
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin may have declared progress on peace between the billionaire tycoons who own Norilsk Nickel (GMKN.MM: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), but their war of words was on with full force on Tuesday.
“I think there is a whole logic for them to stop abusing the other shareholders and play a normal game with all participants, employees, (the) government, and shareholders,” RUSAL Chief Executive and major shareholder Oleg Deripaska told the Reuters Russian Investment Summit.
Evraz sees weaker Q3 despite rising Russia demand
MOSCOW, Sept 2 (Reuters) – Russian steelmaker Evraz Group
(HK1q.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) expects core profit will have slipped in the third
quarter, despite improving Russian demand, due to volatile
prices and concerns about a sustainable economic recovery.
The weaker profit outlook and a wider-than-expected
first-half net loss drove the No.2 Russian steelmaker’s
London-listed stock down 2.8 percent to $26.50, while the broad
market .FTAS was up 0.23 percent.
Russia, Iran to sign energy “road map”
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Tuesday it planned to sign a road map to outline future energy cooperation with Iran.
Russian oil and gas majors Gazprom, Gazprom Neft and LUKOIL, have signed billions of dollars worth of deals to help Iran develop its oil and gas fields but most projects are on holding because of sanctions.
Fresh Russia investments hit by global fears
MOSCOW, June 29 (Reuters) – Foreign investors in Russia are
gripped by fears of a renewed global economic meltdown and are
holding off from investing fresh capital, a host of fund
managers and bankers said on Tuesday.
Attendees at an annual investor conference in the
sun-drenched Russian capital told Reuters that while the Russian
financial climate had improved markedly on a year ago, global
factors made it hard to be truly confident.
Alfa, Telenor make peace; plan $23 billion merger
MOSCOW/OSLO (Reuters) – Norway’s Telenor and Russian partner Alfa Group have agreed to merge their Russian and Ukrainian holdings into a New-York listed mobile operator worth over $23 billion, ending one of the longest ever Russian corporate wars.
The end to the row, which was seen as a major threat to foreign investment in Russia, and which could have seen Telenor lose its stake in Russia’s No. 2 mobile operator in payment of a $1.7 billion fine, sent Telenor’s stock surging 15 percent.
Sberbank may cover RUSAL’s Alfa payment-sources
MOSCOW/LONDON, Sept 29 (Reuters) – Sberbank <SBER03.MM>,
Russia’s top state bank, is expected to step in with a loan to
cover aluminium giant UC RUSAL’s controversial decision to pay
off a single Russian creditor, sources close to RUSAL debt talks
said.
A spokeswoman for RUSAL, which announced the repayment to
privately owned Alfa-Bank last week, said on Monday the company,
which is majority owned by indebted billionaire Oleg Deripaska,
had repaid Alfa from its own cash resources.
Loose lips sink stocks
Moscow: The least worst place for your money
Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital was a big backer of Moscow’s ambition to become a major emerging-markets financial centre, a bridge between European and Asian capital, a rival to Dubai. It not only trumpeted the idea, but was one of the first big local firms to take out offices in a sleek glass skyscraper by the Moscow River, surrounded by foundation pits and towers of naked steel girders that were to become Moscow’s Canary Wharf. Then the financial crisis hit in September 2008, knocking back the city’s ambitions. Renaissance Capital President Ruben Aganbegyan said, however, that other world financial centres were inadvertently helping Moscow’s case despite its setbacks. “A lot of people in the world are doing everything they can to help us,” Aganbegyan told the 2009 Reuters Russian Investment Summit. “Like the UK raising taxes.” Russia instituted a 13 percent flat income tax rate in 2001 to stop rampant tax evasion. Earlier in the day, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told the summit that Russia would try to avoid raising taxes to cover budget deficits for at least three years.
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