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By John Helmer in Moscow
In the last three months of 2009, according to the federal Ministry of Finance in Moscow, Russia exported about 250,000 carats of rough diamonds, produced by Alrosa, to the west African republic of Guinea. There is no known diamond cutting or polishing facility in Guinea, and Russia has never exported diamonds to Guinea before. However, illicit sales of diamonds (aka blood diamonds, conflict diamonds) have been reported as using Guinea as a transit point between the mines in Africa and the markets in Israel, Europe, the US, or elsewhere.
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Senator Bob Brown (left image) is the first Australian politician to call for official accountability in the secret dealings the Australian Government has had since 2004 with Oleg Deripaska. He is chief executive and controlling shareholder of United Company Rusal, the Russian aluminiun monopoly registered on the island of Jersey.
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By John Helmer in Moscow
China’s metals giant, the Aluminum Corp of China Ltd. (Chalco aka Chinalco), tied another knot for its future mining plans in the Republic of Guinea with London-based Rio Tinto in a signing ceremony in Beijing today. But Guinea’s Mining Minister Mahmoud Thiam told Business Day this will not deter the government in Conakry from revoking Rio Tinto’s mining concessions in Guinea if the company fails to comply with the mining law and its concession obligations.
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By John Helmer in Moscow
The federal Ministry of Finance has moved the planned privatization for the state shipping company Sovcomflot into next year; increased the bloc of shares to be offered from 20% previously announced to 25%; and put a discount on the target value for the sell-off.
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By John Helmer in Moscow
A $200 million road construction project in Kenya, one of the country’s biggest infrastructure investments, is being delayed by a World Bank investigation of the involvement of Oleg Deripaska.
The due diligence investigation of Deripaska now under way at the World Bank is the first acknowledgement by the multilateral global lender, based in Washington, DC, that Deripaska’s track record in the aluminium and other businesses; civil and criminal court records in the UK and Spain; and US Government reports have raised corporate governance and credit eligibility concerns.
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By John Helmer in Moscow
After selling out of its container business, the Far Eastern Shipping Company (Fesco), owned by Sergei Generalov (right image), has announced it is taking an August time-out, and will return in September with an announcement of its “near-term strategy”. It isn’t known where Generalov will take his holiday, but if it’s Fantasy Island (left image) the financial details of Fesco’s reorganization and the terms Generalov has apparently accepted to continue in business will require a strong dose of reality to be understood. Since the heavily indebted, loss-making concern has been unable to date to arrange share sales to strategic or ordinary investors, it has been covering its debts by selling off assets, reducing substantially its fleet operations and eliminating much of its port terminal business.
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By John Helmer in Moscow
Among the squares of 17th century London, St. James’s is one of the least pretentious, even if several of the buildings on the square have made a reputation for themselves as pretenders to such things as wealth management, war-fighting, and diplomacy. For them, the equestrian statue of King William III, set in the centre of the square’s garden, is an ill omen. For in 1702 William died of complications from falling off his horse.
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