By John Helmer, Moscow

Flinders Mines (FMS) is what one investor calls a hedge fund hotel, a hangout for bettors on a sure thing.

The source means that after Victor Rashnikov (front seat, left), owner of Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK), decided to buy FMS last November, roughly half the value of the company was bought by hedge funds aiming to collect on the difference between what they advanced and the takeover price they were certain the big Russian would end up paying at deal closure. Because of the action by the Chelyabinsk Arbitrazh Court on March 30, and in the days that have followed, that bet now threatens to lose the hedge funds A$255 million.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, April 17th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Vladimir Kekhman, owner of the Joint Fruit Company (JFC), the near-monopoly supplier of bananas to the Russian market, has wound up his dispute with Star Reefers, the banana boat supplier whose charter contracts JFC cut short and terminated in 2010. The Star boats were operated by JFC to ship bananas from JFC-owned plantations in Ecuador to St. Petersburg, dropping smaller banana cargoes for sale at ports along the way.

The dispute over those contracts resulted in more than a year of litigation in the UK High Court, and an award to Star of $16.3 million in damages and costs, plus interest. When JFC failed to pay that by the November 2011 deadline, Star got the High Court to issue asset disclosure and freeze orders against Kekhman and his associates all over the world. This imperilled not only Russia’s banana traffic, but also Kekhman’s other line of business, the Mikhailovsky theatre and ballet company; the latter has been scheduled to perform in London and New York in a few weeks’ time. Both bananas and ballerinas now appear to be safe from seizure.
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by John Helmer - Sunday, April 15th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The unprecedented display of judicial power against the steel oligarch, Victor Rashnikov, on his home turf continued yesterday and today.

Yesterday, at a hearing in the Chelyabinsk Arbitrazh Court Judge Natalia Bulavintseva took a few minutes without the attendance of lawyers, plaintiff Elena Egorova, or executives of Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK), to dismiss an urgent motion from Rashnikov to lift an injunction preventing his completing his A$554 million (US$571 million) takeover of Flinders Mines, an iron-ore prospector in Western Australia.
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by John Helmer - Friday, April 13th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

This is not the time of year when there’s much sympathy for the plagues in Egypt.

If you are Jewish, there’s the lot the Pharaoh richly deserved — the gnats, flies, frogs, locusts, boils, etc.

If you are Russian, there’s pseudomonas solanacearum Smith, the potato brown rot. This Egyptian plague is a nasty one, not because it’s Egyptian, but because once established in potato cropping areas, the bacterium is resistant to chemical treatments. It can ruin the farmer whose fields are afflicted, and everyone else the poxy spuds come into contact with. Growers who want to export to regulated areas like the European Union and Russia must invest in new areas of cultivation, and take special quarantine measures to keep the plague away. And if the Egyptian growers succeed at that, and manage to lift import barriers and also earn higher prices, there’s the risk that local potato growers will combine to protect their own prices from the import competition.
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by John Helmer - Friday, April 13th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

If, and it remains a big if, Victor Rashnikov’s Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK) is not clandestinely behind the attempt last week by an unknown shareholder to block the completion of MMK’s proposed takeover of Australian iron-ore prospector, Flinders Mines, then a ruling yesterday by Judge N.A.Bulavintseva is the first sign.

According to the website of the Chelyabinsk Arbitrazh Court, yesterday the judge issued a ruling agreeing to MMK’s request for accelerated consideration of the injunction, which she issued on March 30. Instead of a scheduled date of April 25 for hearing the case of plaintiff Elena Egorova, and MMK’s defence and counter-claim, the judge has now advanced the hearing date to April 12. Here is the latest court record.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, April 10th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

To those who listen, it has been made clear that President-elect Vladimir Putin and his closest policy advisor, Igor Sechin, believe that what they need to know about the oligarchs’ misconduct and mismanagement of Russia’s resource concessions, they don’t need to ask the Federal Security Service (FSB) or the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) to find out.

The London courts have been doing this job for them; possibly more slowly than Putin and Sechin prefer, but probably more reliably and precisely than the Russian intelligence services can deliver.
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by John Helmer - Sunday, April 8th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The bun has been in the oven for Victor Rashnikov for six months now. But did he go to President-elect Vladimir Putin and ask permission to put it there? It seems not. Has he been told to pull it out without burning everybody (except for the Australians)? Maybe.

For the previous two thousand years there’s been an argument among pagans and Christians over the hot cross bun – whether the cross stands for the quarters of the spring moon, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, both, neither, etc., etc. The Jews aren’t interested in this one, because they are obliged to stick with matzoh balls at this time of year. The closest Russians have come is the kulich, which is bun-like; it also is decorated with white icing, but instead of the cross, it carries the letters XB for Христос воскресе (“Christ is risen”).
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by John Helmer - Sunday, April 8th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Among Russians Egorova and Egorov are pretty common names, second only in circulation to Ivanova and Ivanov. That puts it up in the ranks of the Smiths and the Browns.

If there really is a litigant named Elena Nikolaevna Egorova; if she owns a minuscule bloc of shares in Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK), and if she really did think up herself and is funding her case against MMK in the Chelyabinsk regional arbitrazh court, she should be talking to the worldwide business press right now. After all, the injunction she won in court on March 30 — revealed yesterday by an announcement from MMK—has stopped MMK from proceeding with its $569 million takeover of junior Australian iron-ore prospector Flinders Mines. But the Egorova blockbuster is bigger than that. The share price of Flinders Mines has collapsed by 20% on the Sydney Stock Exchange, losing A$100m ($98m) in a day. MMK’s share price has lost less proportionally, but its market capitalization is down almost $400m over the past week. That makes a total of around $1.7 billion in value lost on account of the Chelyabinsk court case.

So who is Plaintiff Egorova of Siverskoye, Chelyabinsk?
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, April 4th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Why would Roman Abramovich and his pals decide to buy a small steelmaker in South Africa at a price that would add to their debt by the very same amount they offloaded last year on to share buyers, so as to keep their debt-to-earnings ratio down, and their bankers sweet?

That’s the question on which Evraz’s press and investment relations spokesmen have been thunderingly mute for the past two days. Most of the enthusiasm for the transaction (and its premium price) is being leaked by Anglo American Corporation, while industry analysts say Anglo’s asking price is unrealistic. No wonder the Evraz tongue looks tied.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

On October 12, 2004, Sergei Frank, a former federal Minister of Transport, was appointed chief executive of Sovcomflot, Russia’s largest oil tanker company and one of the top five in the world. Frank confirmed, said the company on its website, “that the Company’s management will take all necessary steps to enhance the Company’s business by ensuring accurate fulfillment of its earlier made obligations and plans. At its best effort the Company will continue to provide the customer-focused quality service.”

A month later, on November 17, 2004, Igor Shuvalov, then an assistant to President Vladimir Putin, was appointed chairman of the Sovcomflot board of directors. He said at the time, according to the company announcement, that “Sovcomflot should get involved more actively in developing “energy dialogue” co-operation between Russia and EU, Russia and the USA covering as well as other countries aimed at meeting the demands of the Russian growing foreign trade. It is also important to achieve increase of capitalization of the company and further improvement of its managing structure.”
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012
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