By John Helmer, Moscow

If Yandex, Russia’s leading search engine and internet portal, tells potential share buyers and investors that it is at risk of a hostile takeover by a man like Alisher Usmanov, who owns a stake in the competing Mail.ru portal, then the charge is a serious one. And if to that, Yandex adds the warning that the president of the country may be behind a scheme to consolidate competing public companies like Yandex into a national search engine, then the initial public offering (IPO), launched last week on the US NASDAQ exchange, is a unique test of what otherwise may be called Russian modernization – and the price of betting on it.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Wednesday, May 4th, 2011
No Comments »

by John Helmer - Saturday, April 30th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow

On Wednesday, the Russian Grain Union, representing most of the country’s grain traders and exporters, said that if the export embargo on grain is extended from July 1 to the year’s end, the expanding surpluses of grain in the southwestern growing regions will force domestic prices down to the Rb3,000 ($107) per tonne level, too low to be profitable for growers and traders, and risking a $3.3 billion loss of trade earnings in the coming season.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Friday, April 29th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow

When the electricity bill goes up in Russia, that is called “liberalization”. Editorialists in countries which don’t enjoy cheap electricity call that a good thing. By which they mean that Mother Nature’s special discount for Russia should be erased, and its competitive advantages in global trade destroyed.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, April 28th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow

On April 25, President Dmitry Medvedev appeared for an interview on the Moscow internet television channel Dozhd (“Rain”). According to the chief interviewer, Natalya Sindeyeva, the advance work by the president’s staff did not include either request or discussion of what questions the president would be asked. Perhaps there should have been, for Medvedev was asked what he would do after the election. Here is how he replied:
(more…)

by John Helmer - Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
No Comments »

Vladimir Putin: Ladies and gentlemen,

As you know, yesterday I delivered a report on the government’s performance in the State Duma. I spoke not only about our performance, however; in point of fact, I spoke about the results of our common endeavour because the government only organises the work of the social sectors and the economy, while the real work is done in the real economy. The people who ensure our achievements are sitting before me now, so it was largely a report on our joint efforts. I spoke not only about what we accomplished last year but also about some plans for the future.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, April 25th, 2011
No Comments »

Excerpts of interview with a journalism school group in Siberia, April 20, 2011

– Where do you work?

Moscow, London

– What are you working on now?
(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, April 25th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow

Just four months since the first Russian crude oil started pumping into Daqing, the northeastern Chinese oil town, the Russian pipeline company Transneft has charged the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) with violating their supply contract, and is threatening to open court proceedings in London.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, April 21st, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow

Oligarchs aren’t elephants who go somewhere secret when their time is up. There’s no fabulous, ivory-rich boneyard for them.

So when Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK), the legendary Siberian steelmill owned by Victor Rashnikov, announced yesterday that there are two candidates for his position as chief executive, it doesn’t mean that Rashnikov is leaving the company. If he were really leaving, that would mean that MMK is up for sale. It isn’t.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, April 21st, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow

Indirectly but without ambiguity, Alisher Usmanov acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday, in a Moscow newspaper he owns, that he has failed to sell shares in his principal asset, the Metalloinvest iron-ore mining and steelmaking group, to anyone. His recourse, he also made clear, is to hold hands with Oleg Deripaska in a combined effort to compel Norilsk Nickel and its controlling shareholders, the Kremlin and Vladimir Potanin, to buy him out, and exchange Metalloinvest shares for Norilsk Nickel shares – at a premium valuation noone has agreed to give Usmanov in his years of trying.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
No Comments »