By John Helmer, Moscow The November 15 announcement by Megafon, the telephone property of Alisher Usmanov and Andrei Skoch, reveals a discount on last month’s valuation targets of up to 20%, depending on how the assets for sale are counted. To attract buyers for shares at bargain-basement prices, the company is promising to pay out […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, November 15th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow If Russia’s leading oil trader Gunvor can lose its allocations of crude oil from Rosneft and Surgutneftegas in a flash, and Novatek almost a third of its domestic gas sales in another instant, then Gennady Timchenko, a control shareholder of both companies, has some explaining to do in public. That is, […]

by John Helmer - Friday, November 2nd, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Spy novels are a dime a dozen – make that £10 before they are remaindered; the fact that some of them are written by ex-spies or counter-espionage agents doesn’t make them more precious for their veracity or insight. What makes Stella Rimington (right) a cut above (or below) is what she […]

by John Helmer - Saturday, October 27th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow When it comes to interior decoration, no one does gilding better than Alisher Usmanov. And when it comes to serving delicacies to journalists, none cooks up the hors d’oeuvres better than he does. In the international stock markets, however, these qualities don’t quite cut the mustard. In consequence, in London this […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow The London Paralympics aren’t over for BP’s chief executive, Bob Dudley. Even if he wins gold, he’s finishing with fewer limbs than he started with. According to the Financial Times version of the negotiation to date between Rosnft, BP, TNK-BP, and between Igor Sechin, Bob Dudley, and Mikhail Fridman, a deal […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, October 18th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow The disclosure of the costs Roman Abramovich incurred in defending against and defeating Boris Berezovsky’s claims — confirmed by an order of Justice Dame Elizabeth Gloster on October 12 — have turned out to be less for Berezovsky to pay than had been speculated in the press. But that’s because he […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, October 16th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow A case that has been going through the courts in London for months, and will be argued afresh in November before the Supreme Court, Britain’s highest tribunal, reveals not only how easy it was for a group of alleged fraudsters to borrow $225 million from state-controlled VTB Bank. Also revealed is […]

by John Helmer - Monday, October 15th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow It’s no surprise that when Alisher Usmanov (left) proposed an initial public offering (IPO) of Megafon, a mobile telephone company he controls, he decided to keep all his shares to himself, and to oblige new sharebuyers to bid for stock being sold from the treasury of Megafon, and from minority stockholder, […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 10th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Very occasionally it happens that the lie a man tells, or his lawyer, comes back to haunt him. Here is the judgement in the case of Michael Cherney (Chernoy) v Oleg Deripaska, issued by the UK Court of Appeal on October 3. Not a word of it has appeared yet in […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, October 7th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Wednesday September 26 was Yom Kippur – the annual Day of Atonement for Jews, the most solemn holiday on the Jewish calendar, when according to the relevant Scripture, God opens his Judgement Book, and takes applications from everyone with an interest in having the black mark removed from his name. God’s […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, September 27th, 2012
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