Saturday, April 7, 2018

"How many Russian oligarchs will lose from US sanctions"

Speaking of the oligarchs, the always interesting  RusLetter has a few recent posts on what's up.
One note, the translation can be really, really choppy in places but is usually worth the effort to figure things out. Sometimes the stuff is directly actionable:
"Gazprom" left without orders pipe plants
For two years, the demand for large diameter pipes collapsed more than twice....
Which is somewhat reminiscent of former Gazprom head Viktor Chernomyrdin's comment:
On his family: "I have approximately two sons." 
I miss Viktor. He was Prime Minister of Russia from 1992 to 1998 and said, after a chaotic Central Bank currency reform in July 1993: "We meant to do better, but it came out as always" The line became a Russian proverb.

Here's the headline post from RusLetter:
The US imposed sanctions against seven Russian businessmen on the Forbes list. All assets of their assets in the US are frozen. Citizens of the United States are forbidden to enter into any business relations with them.
The condition of the billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who fell under personal US sanctions, is rapidly declining. According to the rating of the richest people of the planet according to Forbes (real time) version at 18:00 Moscow time, it decreased by $ 957 million and in real time is $ 5.3 billion. This was due to a sharp drop on the background of En + London stock exchange by 20% - to $ 9.6 per share.

In addition to Deripaska, six more participants of the Forbes list were also hit: they themselves were included in the new list of sanctions, as well as 12 of their companies. Suleiman Kerimov's fortunes decreased (by $ 244 million to $ 6.6 billion) and Viktor Vekselberg's F 10 (by $ 41 million to $ 14.6 billion). The condition of Igor Rotenberg and Kirill Shamalov did not change, and Vladimir Bogdanov and Andrei Skoch even grew by $ 1 million and $ 8 million, respectively.

Before the publication of the "Kremlin report" in which the US authorities promised to name the main friends of Vladimir Putin, against whom restrictions must be imposed, the richest people in Russia were visibly nervous. When the "Kremlin report" was made public, it turned out that it fully coincides with the Russian part of the world ranking Forbes. The Russian billionaires were confused: "Will the sanctions be imposed for the entire Forbes list?" For some time everyone was waiting for new personal sanctions, but problems, as it turned out, do not threaten everyone.

On Friday, April 6, Washington said that now "Russian oligarchs will not have a chance to profit from the Russian corrupt system, they will not be isolated from the consequences of the destabilizing activity of their government." All assets of their assets in the US are frozen. Citizens of the United States are forbidden to enter into any business relations with them. More details about the seven billionaires who are under sanctions - in the gallery Forbes.

Viktor Vekselberg
Assessment of the state: $ 14.4 billion
Place in the world ranking: 89

Source of income: is the founder and chairman of the board of directors of the group "Renova". Now Vekselberg's main asset is investment in the Swiss company Sulzer, the manufacturer of pumping equipment. Previously owned assets in the "Sual Holding", the company Deripaska "Rusal" and "Rosneft"

For which he got on the sanctions list: "for bribing officials associated with the project for the production of electricity in Russia."

Andrey Skoch
Assessment of the state: $ 4.9 billion
Place in the world ranking: 404
...MORE
A couple more RusLetter examples:
Oleg Deripaska lost in the price
The company Oleg Deripaska because of US sanctions fell on the stock exchange for Friday at 2.5 billion dollars.
 And a couple more Viktorisms:

On political efficiency: "We accomplished all items: from A to B."
On Russia's unstable party system: "Whatever party we establish, it always turns out to be the Soviet Communist Party."