http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aCOh_PBqkuQ0
OAO Rosneft (ROSN RX): Crude oil rose after a U.S. government report showed a larger-than-forecast drop in supplies and on speculation European officials are stepping up efforts to solve the debt crisis. Shares of Russia’s biggest oil producer gained 3.8 percent to 233.71 rubles.
OAO Lukoil (LKOH RX): The Russian oil producer with the most assets abroad will hold a board meeting to discuss 2010 results and plans for 2011. Lukoil rose 3.9 percent to 1,867.13.
OAO Raspadskaya (RASP RX): The Russian producer of coal for steelmakers is due to release fourth-quarter and full-year output and prices. Raspadskaya rose 1.6 percent to 233.99 rubles.
OAO Uralkali (URKA RX): Uralkali said its 50 billion rubles ($1.66 billion) of exchange-traded bonds were admitted to trading on Russia’s Micex exchange. The funds from the placement may be used to help finance the planned purchase of about 20 percent of OAO Silvinit for up to $1.4 billion. Russia’s largest potash producer by market value fell 2.4 percent to 220.26 rubles.
Russia Among ‘World’s Riskiest’ for Investors, Maplecroft Says
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a09qITRvRWG0
By Henry Meyer
Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Russia is “one of the world’s riskiest locations for business to invest in,” according to a survey of 196 nations by U.K risk-assessment company Maplecroft.
Russia is the 10th-riskiest country for investors, sliding from 15th last year to place between Pakistan and the Central African Republic, Maplecroft’s annual Political Risk Atlas released today. Brazil, India and China, which along with Russia make up the so-called BRIC group of leading emerging-market economies, are ranked 94th, 26th and 62nd, respectively.
Maplecroft, which assesses factors including conflict, terrorism, the rule of law and the regulatory and business environment, rates 11 countries including Russia as an “extreme risk” for investors.
In March, twin suicide bombers killed 40 people in attacks on downtown Moscow subway stations, including one near the headquarters of the successor to the Soviet-era KGB. The bombings, claimed by Chechen militants, were the most deadly in Moscow since similar attacks in 2004.
Apart from the heightened threat of terrorism, Russia’s “poor performance is compounded by its ‘extreme risk’ ratings for its business environment, corporate governance and the endemic nature of corruption, which is prevalent throughout all tiers of government,” Bath, England-based Maplecroft said.
‘Politicized’ Khodorkovsky Trial
While President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to combat corruption when he came to power in 2008, Russians surveyed at the end of July ranked former president and now Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s inability to deal with the issue during his 10 years in power as the administration’s biggest failure.
Russia is the world’s most corrupt major economy, according to Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index issued in October, sliding to the 154th spot of 178 countries and placing it alongside Tajikistan and Kenya.
The “politicized case” against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed former head of Yukos Oil Co., who last month was sentenced to another six years beyond his 8-year prison term for fraud, reflects the lack of judicial independence in Russia, the Maplecroft report said.
Khodorkovsky’s new conviction on money laundering and embezzling oil may have “unintended repercussions” for business in Russia, state-controlled VTB Capital said Dec. 31.
The “most disturbing detail” was the court’s rationale for the verdict, VTB said. Charges based on Yukos’s use of internal transfer pricing, which redistributes cash flows among units of a holding company, creates a precedent that leaves other businesses open “to attack.”
U.S. and European government officials criticized the conviction of Khodorkovsky and his former business partner Platon Lebedev, saying it weakened the rule of law in Russia and would harm Russia’s image among investors.
To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Willy Morris at wmorris@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: January 12, 2011 19:00 EST
UPDATE 1-Russian pipe firm Chelyabinsk to launch London IPO
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFLDE70C0BE20110113
Thu Jan 13, 2011 7:35am GMT
* Says to list shares on Moscow and London exchanges
* Third Russian London IPO proposal this week
* JP Morgan sole bookrunner, global coordinator (Adds detail)
MOSCOW, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Russian steel pipe maker Chelyabinsk is seeking an initial public offering of shares in London and Moscow, the third Russian company to plan a stock-market flotation in four days.
The company, which has a 15 percent share of the Russian steel pipe market and supplies the oil & gas industry, said in a statement on Thursday it would issue ordinary shares in Moscow and global depository receipts (GDRs) in London.
Chelyabinsk follows pump manufacturer HMS Hydraulic and coking coal producer KOKS in announcing plans to raise cash in London since Russia came back from its January public holiday earlier this week. [ID:nLDE70B0CB]
Analysts have said Russian private issuers could raise up to $30 billion this year given the right market conditions. After two barren years, new share issues rebounded in 2010 with companies raising around $5.5 billion.
Chelyabinsk said in the statement JP Morgan acted as the only bookrunner working on the deal.
It added that its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) came in at 13.3 billion roubles ($437.1 million) in the first nine months of 2010, on revenue up 41 percent at 59.2 billion roubles.
(Reporting by John Bowker, Editing by Toni Vorobyova)
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