russia

By Ivan Anderzhanov

Bulge bracket investment banks Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse have acquired 3.88 percent and 2.77 percent stakes respectively in the Bank of Moscow, a top ten lender.

Goldman’s stake in the state-controlled bank is worth about $200m and Credit Suisses’s around $14m at the current market price.

The Moscow government has been the bank’s core shareholder since it was established in 1995. It owns a 46.48 percent stake directly. The stake was recently cut after a share issue by 1.63 percentage points. The government also controls the bank via Capital Insurance Group, whose 17.11 percent stake was cut by 1.18 percentage points after the issue.

The bank’s senior managers, President Andrei Borodin and Deputy Board Chairman Lev Alaluyev, have also cut their stakes by 2.75 percentage points to 20.32 percent.

By Andrei Skvarsky

Jacques Der Megreditchian, chief business officer at Russian investment bank Troika Dialog, was re-elected on July 27 as chairman of the board of the RTS stock exchange.

Leaving Der Megreditchian in the post he has held since 2004 was a key result of a meeting of the RTS board of directors that also elected two deputy board chairmen, the bourse said in a press release.

One is Oleg Yachnik, general director of Moscow-based investment company OLMA. The other is Oleg Jelezko, who is managing partner at the Moscow operation of Da Vinci Capital, an alternative investments group.

Der Megreditchian, who holds qualifications from the European Business Institute and the French Centre for Financial Analysis, has a record of top financial jobs in Russia that goes back to the early 90s.

The meeting also approved exchange fees for repurchase agreement (repo) trading. The release did not disclose what the fees are.

Kirov agricultural company Doronichi has announced plans to invest $83m building a milk processing plant outside Kirov.

Kamgesenergostroy intends to build a $23.9m Dzhamig mosque in the city of Nizhnekamsk, Republic of Tatarstan.

A total of $64m is to be spent on apartment blocks repairs and citizenry relocation from slum housing in Perm region.

Budget defecits have prompted the Russian government to give initial backing for the biggest privatisation programme since the 1990s

Rosleskhoz and Tatarstan authorities are to build a $6.1m forest planting materials breeding center in the region.

Additional $2.42m is to be allocated on health care system development in Ulyanovsk region in 2010.

Authorities in Ulyanovsk region ask the federal government for a $26.85m budget loan to support agricultural firms that have suffered from drought.

Tractor Plants has defaulted again on the fourth coupon payment of $14m on the third-series $165m bonds.

By Marcus Williams

The corporate trust of BNY Mellon has been hired as trustee, paying agent, calculation agent and transfer agent for Vnesheconombank’s $30bn loan participation note programme.

Vnesheconombank, Russia’s state development bank, was founded in 1924 and emerged as a cornerstone bank during the crisis.

BNY Mellon will provide VEB with all of its debt servicing and maintenance requirements.

BNY Mellon has expanding its business in Russia a year since settling a $22.5bn lawsuit with the Russian government  relating to a 1990s money laundering scandal. The bank ended up paying the government’s legal fees of about $14m.

By Marcus Williams

Japan’s Daiwa Capital has appointed Jung Insuk as head of fixed income in Korea and Ajay Marwaha as head of fixed income in India in an expansion of the business.

Insuk joins from Shinhan Investment Corp., where he was head of fixed income, currency & commodities. Prior to this, he was responsible for trading a wide variety of FICC products, such as domestic and international bonds, currencies and derivatives, at Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse First Boston and KDB Securities.

Ajay Marwaha joins from Nomura in  India, where he served as executive director. Previously, he was also responsible for FICC product trading, and involved in the launch of primary dealer business lines at Lehman Brothers and Citi Group.

In November 2009, Daiwa Capital Markets announced a four-part core action plan to expand its Asian business: upgrading the Hong Kong office to second headquarters status, increasing personnel, strengthening of capital, and appointing local influential figures as advisors. Since then, a number of senior level hires, as well as a series of capital injections have been made in line with this strategy.

These expansion plans, which are focused particularly on China and Hong Kong, followed by India, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, are aimed at significantly expanding operations in Asia, with specific focus on Fixed Income and derivative operations.

The recently announced acquisition of KBC’s global convertible bonds and Asian equity derivative business lines was also in line with this strategy.

Daiwa said the appointment of  Insuk and Marwaha will be followed by further hires and is the first step in expanding operations in these markets.

By Marcus Williams

Renaissance Asset Managers, the investment unit of Renaissance Group, has hired Dmitry Mikhailov from Uralsib as a fund manager.

Mikhailov will run two of Renaissance’s Russian equity retails funds known as PIFs and co-manage the RenShares Utilities Fund, which Sergey Bubnov lead manages.

Mikhailov was at Uralsib as portfolio manager on sector PIFs as well as on the Russian Small and Mid Cap Fund. Last year  Uralsib’s Power Utilities PIF was the best performing Russian utilities fund, having increased in value by 297.63%* in USD terms.

Before joining Uralsib in 2006, he was CEO of a local asset management boutique, managing HNWIs’ savings globally. In 2002-2005, as CIO of private equity fund HealthTech Corp., Mikhailov was responsible for investment research and M&A.

Renaissance recently spun off its fund management arm from its wealth management business.

Digital Sky Technologies‘ Russian investment holding, DST Russia, which owns online portal Mail.ru, ICQ, majority of social network Odnoklassniki.ru and other internet assets in Russia, is expected to do IPO of between 10% and 25% of its shares in London in spring 2011, according to both WSJ and Vedomosti newspapers. DST Russia could be valued at $6 billion, Vedomosti said, thus implying value of stake to be sold at IPO at between $600 million and $1,500 million.

DST hired investment banks Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan to manage the IPO.

DST, which recently consolidated 100% stake in Mail.ru from Naspers, plans to consolidate 100% of Odnoklassniki.ru. In addition, DST holds significant minority stakes in social network Vkontakte.ru, online recruiting firm HH.ru (HeadHunter), instant payment terminal operator OE Investments (QIWI), and others.