By John Helmer in Moscow

Prospectuses are like lap dances. It’s necessary to keep one’s distance so that the baser instincts don’t cloud one’s better judgement.

In a recent West Country court ruling, a lap-dancing bar lost an appeal of the revocation of its adult entertainment licence. The club claimed its lap-dancers were lawfully adhering to the “three-feet rule”set down in its licence. To keep the dancers entertaining rather than prostituting themselves, the rule requires the customers to keep three feet from the performers. But the club had found a loophole in the regulation. This allowed the girls to get very close if they weren’t performing their licensed dances. In the clinches, the club testified the girls were doing no more than exercising their freedom of association, without commercial benefit for the bar. The court didn’t buy it.
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by John Helmer - Friday, October 15th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

With just a week to go before Oleg Deripaska asks Norilsk Nickel’s international shareholders to vote in favour of his hostile takeover of the company, the UK High Court has ordered an end to Deripaska’s tactics towards former patron and partner, Michael Cherney (Chernoy); dismissed more of Deripaska’s claims about his opponent; and fixed the timetable for Deripaska to face trial on charges of fraud, deceit, and breach of trust.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, October 14th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Gennady Timchenko and his allies in state-controlled companies in the Russian oil business are gradually consolidating their dominance over much of Russian oil from the wellhead to the tanker enroute to international markets, and much of the transportation network in between. As the largest energy exporter in the world, Russia naturally aims to be a reliable supplier to its clients. And Timchenko, who lives in Switzerland and France and reportedly carries a Finnish passport, is by all accounts a very reliable fellow. The London law firm Schillings vouches for him – and that says a lot.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 13th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

How much gold should potential investors in Alexei Mordashov’s gold-mining venture, now named NordGold, think they are buying into?
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, October 12th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

The Severstal steel and mining group, owned by Alexei Mordashov, has issued a prospectus this week for the issue of up to $3 billion in loan participation notes to restructure the group’s current debts. The issue is being underwritten by Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital, and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Mordashov’s group reports its current long and short-term obligations at $6.3 billion, with $1.8 billion in cash and equivalent on hand, making a net debt level of $4.5 billion.
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by John Helmer - Monday, October 11th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

The Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador has ordered the arrest of the Russian-owned cruise vessel, Lyubov Orlova, after the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) filed suit last week on behalf of the crew. The 49 Russian and 2 Ukrainian mariners have been stranded on the vessel at the port of St. John’s, Newfoundland, after the Russian owners stopped payments four months ago.
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by John Helmer - Monday, October 11th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

On October 6, Peter Hambro claimed in an interview with Reuters Television that his proposed stock exchange listing of IRC Ltd., a titanium and iron-ore miner in the Amur and Jewish Autonomous Region of fareastern Russia, is his idea of a gift: “We’ve always wanted to give Russian people access to ownership of shares in what is effectively a Russian company,” said Hambro.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 6th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

“Never apologize and never explain. It’s a sign of weakness”. That line comes from a 1949 film called “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”. In that one, John Wayne played a cavalry commander on the verge of retirement who tries to beat his Cheyenne foes one more time. He fails at that, but ends up doing the right thing by the girl (white girl).
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 6th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

The arrest for debt of MV Lyubov Orlova, an Arctic and Antarctic cruise ship almost as famous as her namesake, a Soviet movie star, continues to mystify industry sources in Moscow. That is because noone is owning up to owning the vessel, and thus to responsibility for the court-ordered seizure by marshals in the Canadian port of St. John last week.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

In the business of bloodsucking, noone does it better than Glencore of Baar, Switzerland. They call it trading.

The way it works is that Glencore sinks its teeth into anyone unknowing, foolish, impoverished or desperate enough to come within range. Glencore then trades on 18% or higher profit margins for export sales, which no producer would tolerate if he’s in his right mind and health. So Glencore turns him into a corpse, semi-alive in order to keep up the flow of the red stuff. The profits from trading commodities from companies in which Glencore owns equity positions is even better than the straight trading ventures. In Russia, this is known as transfer pricing or cash and asset stripping. It’s illegal, although the law is almost never enforced.
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by John Helmer - Sunday, October 3rd, 2010
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