By John Helmer, Moscow The state-owned Russian tanker company Sovcomflot revealed this week that its profits are sinking, and that despite months of effort Morgan Stanley, Sovcomflot’s banker and broker, has been unable to attract market demand for its shares. As the much delayed privatization and initial public offering (IPO) of Sovcomflot shares fail once […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, September 15th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Far Eastern Shipping Company (Fesco), owned by Sergei Generalov, announced yesterday it has acquired MetizTrans, a small railcar operator in eastern Siberia. No value for the transaction was disclosed; MetizTrans owns 971 railcars, used mostly for delivering Russian coal to Sea of Japan ports for export. The announced purchase makes a […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, July 21st, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Sergei Frank (bottom image), chief executive of Sovcomflot, is hanging on to his job despite judgements by the UK High Court last December and this March that he is a liar and worse. Sovcomflot, one of the largest oil tanker companies in the world, has sought leave to appeal against the […]

by John Helmer - Friday, July 15th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow If you’re feeling peckish, but the price of fish is too high to swallow, whom do you call? Gennady Timchenko (right image), that’s who – the man who has settled with several English newspapers out of court that he’s not a friend of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and benefits commercially in […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow When money is at risk, open stock markets generally insist on openness, although there are murky exceptions, especially in Canada. It also turns out that business secrets are much harder to keep in the Russian market than elsewhere. That’s one reason the Russian risk discount is so high: the ability of […]

by John Helmer - Friday, June 17th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow In Mother Goose’s original nursery rhyme, the trio at sea got there by jumping out of a rotten potato. Mother G. also didn’t rate highly their options for surviving at sea. But that’s kids’ stuff. Buying shares in Russian transportation companies – rail, shipping, ports, containers – is a grown-up bet […]

by John Helmer - Friday, June 17th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow A fleet of between 200 and 1,000 vessels will be required to carry newly released Russian wheat and other grains to markets in the Mediterranean and East Asia, grain traders and port sources have told Fairplay, in the wake of the May 28 order from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Putin stole […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, June 2nd, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Far Eastern Shipping Co (FESCO), the troubled Russian dry-cargo fleet and ports group owned by Sergei Generalov, broke even on its operations last year, according to international-standard accounts for 2010, just released in Moscow. But Generalov was unable to stop the rot in his fleet arm, and only by radical amputation […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 19th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Vladimir Lisin (far right), owner of Russia’s powerful Novolipetsk steelmaking group and one of the country’s richest men, is the choice of Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin (3rd from left) for new board chairman of the state shipyard conglomerate, United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC).

by John Helmer - Friday, May 13th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow The Russian government has issued a new order listing the state shareholdings to be privatized this year and next. Order No. № 513-p, signed on March 24, omits Sovcomflot from the privatization list, thus barring the sale of the shipping company’s shares: (Order No. 513p).

by John Helmer - Friday, April 1st, 2011
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