By John Helmer in Moscow For the first time in his career, Oleg Deripaska has faced questioning on his business practices and cashflows by a western judge in a criminal court proceeding. Spanish judge of the Audiencia Nacional, Fernando Andreu Merelles, and special prosecutor for corruption cases, José Grinda, were in Moscow on May 12 […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 13th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow Strikeforce Mining and Resources (SMR), a molybdenum miner owned by Oleg Deripaska, failed last week in its second try at attracting Chinese and Hong Kong market investors. The first try was in October 2008, when Morgan Stanley and the Bank of China were the arrangers. But that month, as Deripaska’s […]

by John Helmer - Monday, May 10th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow If you can peer through the volcanic dust, you can tell it’s spring again for the world’s farmers and global feed and food grain production. So naturally the Russian fertilizer companies, which have been one-man bands until now, are thinking of coming back to the stock markets. The first to […]

by Editor - Sunday, April 25th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow Uralchem is the latest of Russia’s fertilizer producers and exporters to ask the London stock market to subscribe funds on trust. Between $496 million and $642 million worth of trust, according to the document entitled “Preliminary Prospectus” issued for Uralchem on April 19. The offerors are Renaissance Capital, Morgan Stanley, […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
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On February 24, 2010, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was critical of Mikhail Prokhorov for failing to meet his investment obligations in the electricity generating sector.

by John Helmer - Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
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Before modernization

by John Helmer - Thursday, February 25th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow In the long history of collapsing empires, there is a golden rule. If and when the outflow of wealth to the foreign concessions or colonies exceeds the wealth that flows back to Empire HQ, the empire is on its last legs. There is one modification of this rule; it’s for […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, February 25th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow Negotiations are close to a deal announcement for the takeover of the Donetsk Electrometallurgical Works (DEMZ) by Russia’s Mechel group, controlled by Igor Zyuzin (right figure). A report today from George Buzhenitsa, steel analyst at Unicredit Securities, discloses that Mechel is “in the final stages of completing the acquisition”. He […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow Victor Chernomyrdin, one of the creators of Gazprom and Boris Yeltsin’s prime minister from 1992 to 1998, once famously said :“we wanted to do the best, but it came out as always”. What the sly duffer meant was: “we tried to serve a better interest than our own, but only […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, January 31st, 2010
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