Having initially predicted contraction of 3%, Citigroup Inc. now believes the Russian economy will shrink by at least 6.5% this year.  VEB will provide over 300 billion rubles in loans to Russian enterprise over the course of 2009.  The company will also begin to place eurobonds as of next month and may increase the issue to $10 billion.  A Siberian court has rejected a stay motion by Telenor to block the sale of its stake in Vimpelcom.  Oleg Deripaska's British van maker LDV looks may well go into administration this week, the Times reports.  Gazprombank reported a loss of $1.8 billion in 2008, the first major Russian bank to do so.  Potash producer Uralkali has announced profits of $653 million, with a 172% increase on last year.  Evraz group saw net profit decrease by ...

We've written before on this blog about the Russian government's declaration of "strategic sectors" in the economy, which is another way of saying that they are open game for state intervention, and foreign participation will be limited.  There are certain areas where this is logical - such as sensitive defense technologies.  There are other areas which make much less sense, such as energy, media, and internet.  The strategic sectors legislation has very little to do with the logic of reciprocity - Gazprom has snapped up assets across Europe, but foreigners aren't allowed controlling stakes in energy projects.  Even Alexander Lebedev has a newspaper in the UK, but no foreign company can get involved in disturbing the Kremlin's carefully managed flow of information to its citizens (how ...

Someone from Renaissance believes that more Washington decides to play around in Georgia and the Ukraine, the worse the Russian stock market will perform. To us, that seems to be a clear demonstration of a transparency problem. Marina Akopian, a partner at London-based emerging markets boutique Hexam Capital (a joint venture with Resolution Asset Management) says: 'Prices bear little or no relation to results, with sellers getting rid indiscriminately of winners and losers.' She cites potash producer UralKali, whose share price is down some 70 per cent over three months despite first-half revenue growth of 114 per cent and net income up 261 per cent year on year. 'The plunge would not have been so steep had the government done some more explaining,' says Igor Yurgens, head of government relations at Renaissance Capital, Russia's largest privately owned investment bank. 'It needs to be more open about its medium and long-term ...