By John Helmer, Moscow

A century ago and longer, the Ottomans understood not to press the Russians in close encounters; the Turks are slow learners. After several recent episodes in which the Turkish armed forces have attempted to interfere with Russian vessels delivering cargo to Syria, the Russians have now delivered the message that Turkish cargoes headed for Russia may be stopped altogether.

The subtlety of this message has yet to be detected by the Anglo-American war media. They are still blustering over the message the Syrians delivered when they used Russian-made cannons to shoot down an American-made Turkish spy plane over Syrian territory on June 22.
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by John Helmer - Friday, July 6th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Money laundering is one of those things that is usually accompanied by a lot more gossip than conviction. Exactly what gets washed and for whose benefit are difficult to pin down, usually because those who do it are smarter than your average washerwoman. Still, if the Swiss money police are on the case, that’s so unusual, there’s bound to be more than the customary ladies’ chatter. For Gunvor, the Geneva-based oil trader which has been the foundation of Gennady Timchenko’s (image right) fortune, the police make a novel experience. And one such experience might become a precedent for others – or at least that’s what the washerwomen on the bank of Lake Geneva were surmising before their picture was taken.

What is being reported authoritatively this week is that there was a Swiss police search of the Gunvor offices overlooking Lake Geneva in January. Either before, or not long after, the Swiss federal prosecutor opened a formal investigation of suspected money laundering by person or persons unknown. At least one Swiss bank account is reported to have been frozen as part of the ongoing investigation. This has happened at Bank Clariden Leu, a Zurich-based private institution which was part of the Credit Suisse holding until April of this year, when it merged and ceded its name to the Credit Suisse brand.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, July 5th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Oleg Deripaska, chief executive of United Company Rusal, is prosecuting his old friend and Rusal veteran, Andrei Raikov, on charges already dismissed by the Moscow police and the Moscow courts, because Raikov, according to his representatives, has refused to testify for Deripaska against another old friend, Mikhail Chernoy (Michael Cherney).

Cherney’s 6-year lawsuit in the UK High Court to recover his 13% shareholding in Rusal, and enforce the shareholding contract and trust agreement he and Deripaska signed in March 2001, goes to trial next week. Lawyers for Cherney and Deripaska will present summaries of their positions, before the court adjourns for the summer recess. Witness testimony and cross-examination will start when the court resumes on October 1.
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by John Helmer - Monday, July 2nd, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

At a closed-door hearing today at the Chelyabinsk Arbitrazh Court, Judge Natalia Bulavintseva again refused to hear argument for and against the proposed half-billion dollar acquisition of an Australian iron-ore miner, Flinders Mines, by Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK). The court secretary Sergei Povalyaev said the judge ordered the hearing postponed for another month, until August 1. The reason, the source said, was to allow a “request for financial and economic expertise, which was filed by one of the parties.” Because of the closed door, he claimed he could not say whether MMK filed the delay-making request, or Flinders Mines, or the purported plaintiff in the action, MMK minority shareholder Elena Egorova.
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by John Helmer - Monday, July 2nd, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

When a powerful Kremlin official recently confided that he values the usefulness of UK High Court proceedings involving some of Russia’s wealthiest businessmen, he probably wasn’t thinking of the case which concluded on Friday with a judgement issued by Justice Sir Geoffrey Vos. The Russian official was intimating that the British court is providing an internationally credible platform for forensic analysis of crimes which have been the foundations of many recent Russian fortunes. He probably wasn’t thinking of the diamond and real estate fortune of Lev Leviev (image left); the Soviet debt, gun and diamond fortune of Arkady Gaydamak (centre); or the celestial credits of Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berl Lazar (right). All three were condemned by this ruling.
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by John Helmer - Monday, July 2nd, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK) announced Thursday it will not agree to extend the time for its agreement to buy Flinders Mines, an Australian iron-ore miner, after the deal deadline or quit date expires tomorrow, June 30. “Magnitogorsk’s decision on its future actions regarding the agreement will be taken only when the results of the court hearings are known,” Kirill Golubkov, a spokesman for MMK, said.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, June 28th, 2012
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The inaugural award of the Russian Register for the Revival of all Reading (RRROAR) has been announced today. According to the citation, Dances with Bears is “attracting unprecedented resources to the written word. This deserves the recognition that it is doing more than any other published source in print or on the internet to revive reading in Russia this year.”

The award competition was initiated following reports from Russian book publishers that their business is collapsing. According to Oleg Novikov, chief executive and co-owner of Eksmo, the dominant book-publishing company in Russia today, the market of book readers is contracting by 5% to 7% per year, compared to less than 3% in other countries of comparable literacy. Every year, says Novikov, 2% fewer Russians tell pollsters that they regularly read books. Over the past decade, the proportion of the Russian population reading books has dropped from 55% to 35%. Compared to watching television, playing computer games, and tweeting, Novikov says, “reading books is a more complicated intellectual activity.”
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by John Helmer - Thursday, June 28th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

If wine were an investment, like company shares, gold, or real estate, then you would expect the Russian oligarchs to put their hands into this particular till. But hobby vineyards and French chateaux aside, there haven’t been many. Still, Vadim Varshavsky’s Croizet cognac (Charente) has not proved to be as ill-fated as his steel business. Eugene Shvidler’s Chateau Thenac (Bergerac) is doing better than that with a range of wines selling for as little as £7.95, but as a business among Shvidler’s holdings it’s still small beer.

Thinking less of price than rate of return, the value of wine over the past decade has generated 15% per annum growth, according to the Liv-Ex Fine Wine Index. That’s equal to gold, but much, much better than stocks. Of course, most of the contents of wine caves is drunk, not traded. So the rate of return is a nominal one. That may be why wine doesn’t meet the swift payback standard of the Russian oligarchs, and why they haven’t taken positions in the Russian wine business as they have in pigs, fish, grain, farm land and fertilizers.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, June 28th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Like the metal itself, Russian Platinum is shy, but ambitious in turn to be recognized as expensive. This isn’t as persuasive as a junior miner of precious metals needs to be if it wants to raise money and find share buyers in the market, as Russian Platinum’s owners, the Bazhaev family, are now proposing.

But their first attempt at a private offering to Russian private equity funds in Moscow last December failed, and they are hiding the presentation document that was distributed. Whether a second attempt will be made at an initial public offering (IPO) on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange depends on whether the company can overcome its coyness and disclose the normal amount of information to be truth tested by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, June 27th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

At the conclusion of a share buyback offer, Severstal has announced that 170 million of the 1.01 billion shares outstanding will be purchased. Alexei Mordashov, the control shareholder with 66% of the shares before the buyback, tendered his shares to the offer in full, as did the associated control company, Lybica Holding, with 19%. There was relatively low participation on the part of investors and shareholding institutions which comprise the current 15% free float.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, June 26th, 2012
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