By John Helmer, Moscow

Data: The latest report from Emerging Portfolio Fund Research (EPFR) of Boston shows that funds investing in Russian listed stocks reported net inflows for the week ending March 2. The total invested was $139 million. The last time I reported on the funds flow was a fortnight ago, when the Financial Times was misrepresenting the market sentiment towards the country and misreporting the financial performance of the oligarchs. While the latest inflow result is the smallest net inflow since the first week of January, it is still much better than the position in other emerging market (EM) country funds, all of which saw the negative outflows indicated in this tabulation prepared by Uralsib Bank today:
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by John Helmer - Friday, March 4th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

LUKoil, Russia’s second oil producer and exporter, has been running an illegal cash smuggling scheme out of front companies in the US, and diverting millions of dollars into a slush fund through an Israeli front company, according to court papers filed in the US yesterday. The mastermind, the US documents allege, is Sergei Kukura, LUKoil’s chief financial officer (image).
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by John Helmer - Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
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Reuters 2/3/11

CONAKRY – Guinea’s President Alpha Conde on Tuesday enlisted the help of billionaire investor George Soros to review the resource-rich West African nation’s mining code and fight corruption in the sector.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

This is the tale of how one Russian’s ambition to be the biggest of his kind in the world, and create a safe haven for his wealth in another country, ended up costing public shareholders billions of dollars in equity and dividend losses; enriched a syndicate of international banks; and lost the Russian state treasury billions of dollars in tax deductions. Russian oligarchs don’t make mistakes — they simply pass on their costs.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

In a three-day hearing in the UK High Court, which wound up on Monday of this week, Russian state shipping company Sovcomflot faced cost, indemnity and compensation claims for an estimated $180 million, filed by Yury Nikitin, Dmitry Skarga (right image), and Tagir Izmailov. They were the three defendants in the six-year court battle waged in London by the Sovcomflot shipping group, its chief executive Sergei Frank (left image), and Sovcomflot’s successive board chairmen, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and Chief of Staff of the President, Sergei Naryshkin.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Want to throw rice at the bride and groom — Krasnodar will be glad to fill your order. For starting this January, Russia has become a net rice exporter for the first time in its history.

According to Alexander Korbut, spokesman for the Russian Grain Council, about 100,000 tonnes of short-grain rice have been shipped to Turkey. Grown in the southwestern Krasnodar region, on the verges of the Black Sea, Korbut told Fairplay: “The rice market is peculiar. Russia has just entered it, and a considerable period of time will be needed to confirm the principal consumers. The current situation on the market is favourable for Russia, but we don’t know how that will develop.”
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Sergei Generalov, controlling shareholder of Far Eastern Shipping Company (Fesco), lifted the lid yesterday off an intensifying contest among Russia’s transport moguls to redivide the state’s rail, box terminal and shipping concessions. These will be awarded before the presidential election in a year’s time by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The armchair warriors in London and Washington love nothing so much as an excuse for an invasion against an enemy too small to put up much of a fight, or inflict too many casualties on the invaders. But that’s because the parlour fires, in front of which their armchairs are placed, have a limitless supply of gas, no matter what the price.
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by John Helmer - Monday, February 28th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Man has been eating his best friend for at least 9,400 years – and that’s just in the US. In Russia, he’s been doing it for even longer. He’s still doing it.
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by John Helmer - Friday, February 25th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Oleg Deripaska will fail to swing Norilsk Nickel’s international shareholders into voting for his slate of candidates for the new board of directors at Norilsk, according to a report and proxy vote recommendation by Institutional Shareholder Services/Risk Metrics, a Washington, D.C.-based advisory specialist.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
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