By John Helmer, Moscow

Barry Cheung (second left), the new board chairman of United Company Rusal and the first non-Russian chairman of a Russian monopoly, is viewed by his countrymen and business peers as a technocrat, a politician, and a businessman, in that order.

The one business he reports in the curriculum vitae released by Rusal is the Bermuda-registered, Hong Kong-listed Titan Petrochemicals Group Limited. This company says it has concentrated on selling floating and land-based oil storage services for Chinese oil buyers, as well as bunker fuel for vessels, after dropping out of the business of oil trading in 2008. Cheung says he was chief executive officer between July 2004 and January 2008, and then vice chairman of the Titan board. A search of Titan’s annual reports from 2008 to 2011 reveals that Cheung was replaced as chief executive in 2007 and moved to deputy chairman of the board; but he resigned from that post in June 2008.
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by John Helmer - Monday, March 19th, 2012
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Because the JFC company spokesman refused to confirm the name of Vladimir Kekhman’s wife, and thus clarify whether she has played a role in the management and board direction of JFC, it was incorrectly reported that Tatiana Litvinova, until very recently a board director at JFC, was Kekhman’s wife. This appears to be incorrect, based on research in the publicly accessible picture files of Russian media.

According to JFC, Mrs Kekhman’s identity was a private matter, and that’s where it would remain, if Viktoria Aminova had not agreed to publication of photographs of her with her husband (numbers 1 and 2), at presentations of fashion designs she sells (3 and 4), and at a public lecture on ballet and fashion (5). The likeness is confirming; so is the ring on the left finger in pictures 1, 3 and 5.

by John Helmer - Monday, March 19th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Vladimir Kekhman, the controlling shareholder of Joint Fruit Company (JFC), Russia’s biggest banana trader, has received a summons to appear in the UK High Court to face charges of contempt of court. If he is found culpable, he may be jailed. If he doesn’t appear and is convicted, he may be arrested on warrants exercisable at the frontiers of almost every country Kekhman likes to visit, especially on the tours planned this year for the Mikhailovsky Theatre and Ballet Company which Kekhman also directs.

It is unprecedented for a major Russian business figure to undergo a contempt of court proceeding in the British courts, and to date none has been sent to prison. But the case of Kazakh banker Mukhtar Ablyazov is a warning and omen for Kekhman. Ablyazov, the former controlling shareholder of BTA Bank, was convicted last month and sentenced to 22 months in prison for contempt in relation to High Court asset freeze orders. He is now on the run.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, March 15th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Oleg Deripaska (image top right) has always had trouble with his business partners when money rewards, administrative pressure, threats, or rigged courts failed to be persuasive. So he might have been more cautious announcing yesterday that the replacement of Victor Vekselberg as chairman of the board of United Company Rusal will be Deripaska’s decision to make swiftly and easily. At a conference call yesterday with reporters, Deripaska claimed the appointment will be made at a board meeting on Friday; and that Vekselberg is likely to be replaced by his choice of one of the board directors Deripaska considers independent. “The chair won’t even get cold,” Deripaska is reported as telling the reporters. None of the reporters is reported to have said anything.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, March 14th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Sergei Stepashin is a former Prime Minister of Russia. He’s also been a security minister, justice minister and interior minister. He holds a doctorate of law, the academic rank of professor, and the military rank of Colonel-General. This is a serious pedigree — when he tilts at a target, Stepashin is a master of pen and sword. For many years he has headed the state audit organization responsible for supervising the legality and efficacy of state tax-gathering and state spending. This outfit is called the Accounting Chamber. Since it was created in 2000, Stepashin has been its only chief.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, March 14th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Victor Vekselberg, chairman of the board of directors of United Company Rusal, has done what no Russian business partner of Oleg Deripaska has dared to do before, with one exception – announced publicly, and to Deripaska’s face, that Deripaska has violated his signed agreements and brought discredit on his business. Vekselberg, who once proposed merging his Siberian Ural Aluminium (SUAL) company with Mikhail Chernoy’s (Michael Cherney’s) 20% stake in Siberian Aluminium, putting Deripaska out of the business, now follows Chernoy in charging Deripaska with dereliction of his fiduciary duty, and worse. Cherney, the exception now joined by Vekselberg, takes Deripaska to trial in London in June.

It is unprecedented in Russian business for the chairman of the board of a major Russian company to make a public attack on the competence and propriety of the chief executive. This is because the board chairman of a Russian public company is generally the control shareholder, or the trustee of the control shareholder. But in this case, Vekselberg with 15.8% of the Rusal shares (shared with his partner Len Blavatnik) is implicitly challenging Deripaska’s nominal shareholding of 47.41%, hinting at what is widely suspected in Moscow – that Deripaska doesn’t himself control that bloc, and can be called to account for the loss of Rusal value by those who do.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 13th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Imagine that Russian spetznaz troops were helicoptered into a foreign country, opening fire on a hideout in which Russian citizens were being held hostage by heavily-armed bad guys demanding a ransom for their captives. And suppose the outcome of the firefight was the deaths of the hostages. One can be sure the Anglo-American media would headline the operation as a botch-up demonstrating the incompetence of the Russian military, the Russian lack of respect for the human rights of its citizens, and the ruthlessness of President-elect Vladimir Putin for giving the foolhardy order to fire.

“The beginning of the end of Putin” would be the sub-text, just as The Economist has front-covered its reporting of Russia this week, while its sister publication, The Financial Times, tries to talk down Putin’s election majority, talk up Russian risk in the markets, and ignore the contrary evidence of the RTS index — up 24% since the start of the year; down 4.3% after election day, and up again by 2.2% yesterday. As a Moscow-based reporter of a US paper of record complains, his bureau has been under orders from headquarters to keep up the anti-Putin drum-beat to the exclusion of other news.
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by John Helmer - Sunday, March 11th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

This morning Signor Enzo Caderni, the Director of the Grand Hotel & Pace Spa at Montecatini Terme, a well-known establishment in the Tuscan mineral waters resort, has confirmed that the wife of the outgoing president of Russia, Svetlana Medvedeva , has taken his hotel for a personal visit. The entire hotel, but not all of its 140 rooms.

Details of her stay appeared first in the Italian newspapers, then in the Russian media. Since the hotel is currently closed for its seasonal break, and will not reopen to regular guests until March 23, it’s possible that the First Lady’s party will benefit from a substantial discount for their accommodation. Otherwise, her presidential suite would cost about €600 per night, and the full complement of connecting or accompanying rooms and suites about €12,000 per night, not counting nourishment, treatment, water, etc.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, March 7th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

When British prime ministers borrow horses to ride from Rupert Murdoch’s employees, and Scotland Yard inspectors are entertained on their tab, it has been natural for Murdoch to expect he could tie a bridle on prime ministers and policemen and lead them in whatever direction he wanted. And so he has.

Still, the bribery, invasion of privacy, perversion of justice, and corruption troubles which Murdoch and at least one son, James Murdoch, are in at the moment in London show signs of being remedied at a price Murdoch can afford to pay.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

For three years, between 2008 and 2010, Rupert Murdoch and his subordinates in charge of the Russian asset he owned, News Outdoor Russia (NOR), were under the investigation of the Moscow city prosecutors, the city Duma, and other government agencies for alleged bribery of municipal officials in exchange for business favours.

NOR’s business was erecting billboards in public space on city or state property, and advertising products to passers-by. The less NOR managed to pay in rent for the land and permissions on which the billboards depended, the more profit Murdoch took from the advertising charge. Maybe Murdoch shared his profits with city officials, maybe he didn’t – that was the crux of the corruption enquiries.
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by John Helmer - Monday, March 5th, 2012
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