Russia

Russian metals and mining giant Mechel plans to sign a final debt-restructuring deal in early 2017, its chief financial officer told Reuters, concluding more than two years of negotiations on a burden that has threatened its survival. Mechel borrowed heavily before Russia's economic crisis and struggled to keep up repayments as demand for its products weakened alongside tumbling coal and steel prices.

When Elvira Nabiullina took over as governor of Russia’s central bank, she came face to face with a sobering statistic: regulators listed as many as 150 banks that were regularly involved in dubious transactions, the Financial Times reported. Today, after an unprecedented three-year purge of the dark corners of Russian finance, that number is down to “no more than about 10”, Ms Nabiullina says. And she is only just getting started.

The cost of insuring Russian debt using credit-default swaps fell to a three-week low as tensions with Ukraine eased, offering relief from mounting political risk that had weighed on assets last month, Bloomberg News reported. Investors welcomed the diminished political strife and signs Russia is seeking to end its isolation under U.S. and European sanctions over Ukraine, said Piotr Matys, a currency strategist at Rabobank in London.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned that Moscow has no money available to raise pensions further in line with last year’s high inflation rate, news that is likely to be unwelcome ahead of parliamentary elections in September, The Wall Street Journal reported. “We don’t possess enough resources to carry out [an] extra pension adjustment,” Mr. Medvedev said Tuesday at a meeting with government officials. The cost of living has skyrocketed in Russia in recent months, driven by a massive drop in the ruble’s value and the government’s ban on Western food imports.

Russian state development bank VEB has solved its problems with liquidity for this year, the bank's Chairman Sergei Gorkov told President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said on its web-site on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said earlier that VEB which has lent heavily to loss-making projects would receive 150 billion roubles ($2.3 billion) from the budget in 2017, the same as in 2016. Read more. (Subscription required.)

Vladimir Putin’s economy has been shrinking for 18 months but he still doesn’t have a plan to get it going again, Bloomberg News reported. After focusing almost exclusively on foreign policy since early 2014, the need to get the economy back into gear is forcing the Russian president to face a painful choice: bow to the demands of the markets or protect his Kremlin-centered system. “Putin makes political and geopolitical decisions confidently, but delays on the economic ones because they are harder for him,” said Yevgeny Yasin, a former economy minister.

Brunswick Rail Ltd., the Russian railcar lessor struggling to repay foreign debt following a plunge in the ruble, issued a last-ditch bond-restructure plan after talks with creditors broke down. The company is giving holders of $600 million of bonds due in November next year the option of either cashing out 51 percent of the notes’ face value in rubles or getting a 38 percent payout and new payment-in-kind notes, also in rubles, which would give creditors the right to acquire as much as 25 percent of equity, according to a Brunswick statement.

As Russia’s government counts the months to an economic rebound, a bellwether of investment is nearing levels of distress last seen during the throes of a recession seven years ago, Bloomberg News reported. Building completions plunged 9 percent from a year earlier in May, the worst showing since October, even as industrial production grew for a second month and consumer indicators from real wages to unemployment improved.

Vladimir Putin is considering selling part of Russia’s corporate crown jewels to China and India as the president struggles to meet spending commitments before his possible re-election bid in less than two years, Bloomberg News reported. Russia is seeking buyers for 19.5 percent of state oil champion Rosneft OJSC and would prefer a joint deal with the two nations leading the growth in global energy demand, two people familiar with the matter said.

Russian farming conglomerate Rusagro has filed a bankruptcy claim against Razgulay , according to materials of the Moscow Arbitration Court, Reuters reported. Rusagro, a fast-growing pork and sugar producer, confirmed submitting the claim, saying it was a technical move. Rusagro acquired all existing debt, as well as around 20 percent of shares of the Razgulay Group from Razgulay creditor VEB last year. Razgulay has subsequently put its assets up for sale and Rusagro agreed to buy three sugar-processing plants and one for buckwheat from the firm.