By John Helmer in Moscow A Moscow brokerage named Metropol has recommended buying Alrosa shares with the promise of a 72% upside in value. But there’s a catch. At present, it isn’t quite legal for those who don’t already own shares in the closed joint stock company form of Alrosa to buy and sell them.

by John Helmer - Thursday, September 9th, 2010
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link 1 link 2 By John Helmer in Moscow The Valdai International Discussion Club is a collection of journalists, academics and erstwhile opinion-makers from countries whose hostility towards the Kremlin has traditionally been a problem. Neutralizing that sentiment has been the principal reason the club’s annual autumn trip to Russia and talk-show with Vladimir Putin […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, September 7th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow The promoters of United Company Rusal at Bloomberg have kicked off a new marketing campaign for Oleg Deripaska’s heavily indebted aluminium company, disclosing this week that “Rusal is planning Russia’s first offering of bonds in China, spurred by McDonald’s Corp.’s debut sale in yuan.” A roadshow to test whether the […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, September 7th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow Even in ignominy or retirement, a big boy’s toys are worth playing with. Uralkali is Russia’s dominant producer of potash fertilizer and will soon merge with Silvinit to become the national potash champion, according to a government scheme first reported here on June 15. At the time, the head of […]

by John Helmer - Monday, September 6th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow Runaway inflation and unemployment rates are the conventional killers of campaigns for reelection in the democracies, such as the US and the UK. But in the autocracies, the rising price of bread (or rice), leading to hoarding, usually does the trick.

by John Helmer - Friday, September 3rd, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow An order of the Russian Government has this week lifted last month’s total ban on grain exports, but stopped well short of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s forecast that significant export shipments of Russian grain may be allowed later in the season.

by John Helmer - Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow Oleg Deripaska is preparing a series of presentations to institutional investors next week in Boston and New York, chaperoned by one of his largest creditor banks, BNP Paribas. Rarely has so unconvincing a lamb been led to market by so well-known a wolf; or such an odd couple asked to […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow Russia’s Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who also chairs the supervisory board of state diamond miner Alrosa, is considering selling rough diamonds from the state stockpile more than a year earlier than has been forecast by the stockpile agency, Gokhran. It is unclear whether Kudrin is trying to lower the price […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
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by John Helmer - Sunday, August 29th, 2010
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by John Helmer - Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
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