TNK-BP puts $10bn into Arctic plans December 14, 2011 RUSSIAN oil company TNK-BP, half-owned by BP, will invest up to $10bn (£6.4bn) in Arctic oilfield development and construction of a pipeline to link the fields with the export pipeline, the company said yesterday. Russia, the world’s top crude producer, is desperate to tap new hydrocarbon resources at the far-flung reaches of the Arctic and [...]
New listing rules and jitters over Europe pull FTSE down December 14, 2011 WEAKNESS in risk-sensitive commodity issues and banks dragged Britain’s FTSE 100 index lower yesterday, with concerns over the Eurozone debt crisis ratcheted up as Italy’s borrowing costs expanded to a record high. Italy had to pay 6.47 per cent on five-year bonds in an auction yesterday, up from a previous euro era record high of [...]
Russia’s protests are a cry for less state corruption December 14, 2011 ANYONE surveying the scene in Russia today has one name to commit to memory: Alexey Navalny. It would be a gross exaggeration to say that this 35-year-old anti-corruption blogger was responsible for turning out a 50,000-strong protest against a rigged parliamentary election – the largest pro-democracy movement Russia has seen since the collapse of communism. [...]
OUT OF OFFICE December 14, 2011 SLAVA’S SNOWSHOW AT ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL This surreal, laugh-out-loud, poignant festive-themed physical theatre troupe has been quietly gaining plaudits for years. As of tomorrow, Londoners will get their first chance in 15 years to see the larger-than-life performance. This distinctive brand of Russian clowning sees a group of rather terrifying characters put on a spectacular [...]
MAN GROUP AIDE PLOTS FAME, SEX AND RUIN December 13, 2011 MANAGING the press coverage of Man Group’s multimillionaire hedge fund manager Pierre Lagrange is not a nine-to-five job. Which is partly why it taken Man Group’s head of media relations David Waller eight years “on and off” to complete his second historical biography around his day job, this time on his scandalous great-uncle Eugen Sandow. [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING December 12, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES Evraz raises prospect of Severstal merger Evraz has raised the possibility of a merger with Severstal in a deal that would unite Russia’s two biggest steelmakers to create the world’s eighth-largest producer by output, with a combined market capitalisation of £12bn. Alexander Abramov, Evraz’s chairman and founder, said in an interview with the [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING December 11, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES TNK-BP WARNED ON LEGAL ACTION Two of the independent directors in TNK-BP, the Russian joint venture of BP, warned the board that legal action by the company against either set of shareholders could destabilise the group, according to a letter seen by the Financial Times. In the letter addressed to Mikhail Fridman, TNK-BP’s [...]
Russians join FTSE 100 December 8, 2011 EVRAZ, the Russian miner and steelmaking group part-owned by Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovitch, yesterday said it was “delighted” to be included in the FTSE 100 index. A second Russian group, gold and silver miner Polymetal, was also added to the blue-chip index after the quarterly review by the FTSE committee on Wednesday. Evraz [...]
MRSK lists on LSE to attract new investors December 8, 2011 RUSSIAN power grid company MRSK listed its shares in London yesterday in a move it hopes will boost the liquidity of its stock and enable it to raise funds in the future, its chief finance officer told City A.M. The technical listing, in which no money is raised, will see MRSK list 25 per cent [...]
Banks and miners fuel FTSE gains December 7, 2011 Miners and banks fuelled a lift in the FTSE 100 as investor sentiment improved ahead of a crunch Eurozone summit. The blue chip index mirrored Asia and the US where markets recovered from the ratings blow from Standard & Poor’s, which threatened to downgrade 15 nations, including Germany. There is mounting optimism that Eurozone leaders [...]