Russia

Delivering yet another jolt to Russia’s central bank, last month brought a new surprise after an inflationary shock in June, Bloomberg News reported. The unexpected reading in the consumer-price index pushed it below the Bank of Russia’s target of 4 percent months ahead of a year-end deadline, as a surge in food costs fizzled out. But when it comes to the direction of policy, the turnaround may not be much of a game changer after the central bank put its easing cycle on pause in July following three straight cuts.

Russia’s largest oil company disclosed another advance payment to Venezuela’s state producer after the U.S. sanctioned President Nicolas Maduro on Monday, Bloomberg News reported. Rosneft PJSC paid $1.02 billion to Petroleos de Venezuela SA in April for future crude supplies, the state-run Russian producer said in an earnings statement on Friday. That follows advance payments of about $1.5 billion in 2016 and comes a day after Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin pledged to stick with investment plans in the crisis-torn Latin American nation.

Regulators might expect that shutting down a bank under suspicion for asset-stripping and fraud is enough to staunch the bleeding. But five months after Tatfondbank PJSC, one of Russia’s biggest regional banks, defaulted on a bond as the regulator seized control, State Street Corp. authorized payment of more than $500,000 in interest and principal to a Kazakh investor that held the debt, the U.S. custodian bank said.

It seems everyone has a set of demands for what should happen to Venezuela. For the most part, from the streets of Caracas to the White House, these are loud but rather vague talking points. People in the bond market, though, have begun to put together a plan for reassembling the country’s economy and finances, the Financial Times reported. Of course it would be better if Venezuelans were able to agree their own coherent plan, but that is not happening right now.

Russian conglomerate Sistema has announced it has suffered a technical default on Rbs 3.9bn worth of debt, after a court froze more than $3bn worth of its assets as part of a legal battle with state-controlled oil giant Rosneft. Sistema on Monday announced the technical default, saying that it was “driven exclusively” by the asset freeze, the Financial Times reported.

The delayed $13bn takeover of India’s Essar Oil by a consortium led Rosneft has cleared its last serious obstacles, according to the Russian oil group’s chief executive Igor Sechin. Shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting in Sochi were told on Thursday by Mr Sechin that a “legal decision was received” that would allow the deal to proceed, the Financial Times reported.

VTB, Russia's second-biggest lender, is ready to talk about restructuring Mozambique's debt and has provided all the information required for a forensic audit into hidden loans to three state-owned firm to authorities, a bank's executive said, Reuters reported. The audit of the loans to EMATUM, Proindicus and Mozambique Asset Management (MAM), is a condition for the International Monetary Fund to resume aid talks with one of the world's poorest countries.

Russia's largest bank Sberbank is considering selling 1.1 billion euros (920.1 million pounds) in loans it granted to indebted Croatian food and retail group Agrokor, Sberbank's First Deputy Chairman Maxim Poletayev said, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. "We are also considering a possibility of selling Agrokor's debt and are in talks with buyers on the international markets," Poletayev said in an interview with Reuters.

Russia won an early verdict in a London lawsuit that may force Ukraine to repay part of a defaulted $3 billion bond, in a dispute that extended the battle over Russia’s annexation of Crimea into a U.K courtroom, Bloomberg News reported. Judge William Blair threw out all of Ukraine’s arguments Wednesday, saying he was at pains to distinguish between the law and the "troubling" political background. He ruled the case shouldn’t go to a full trial but gave Ukraine the right to appeal.

When Alexei Kudrin was tasked last year with drawing up a new economic strategy for Russia, there were good reasons for the country’s leadership to countenance previously unpalatable reforms, the Financial Times reported. With the crash in oil prices, the effects of sanctions and the fall in the rouble eroding real incomes and squeezing public finances, there was a genuine fear of protest from a middle class accustomed to greater comfort.