Russia

Russia has a new enemy: the currency markets. Russia’s government is in the middle of an all-out fight to preserve the value of the ruble in the face of plummeting oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, the International New York Times reported. In the boldest move yet to stanch the bleeding, the Central Bank of Russia announced a stunning interest rate increase in the middle of the night. Its main deposit rate is now 17 percent, up from 10.5 percent when Russian banks closed for business on Monday.

The ruble’s plunge against the euro and the dollar is upending the lives of many in Russia’s middle class, which in recent years has gotten used to vacations abroad and Western products from gadgets to food, The Wall Street Journal reported. Booming oil prices helped Russia’s middle class grow to 60% of the population in 2010 from 30% a decade earlier, according to the World Bank.

The Perm-based Avialeasing investment company has lodged a bankruptcy petition against Russia’s leading regional carrier, UTair, which has failed to pay 3.5 million rubles ($67,000) for leasing Tu-154-M planes, the press service of the arbitration court said on Monday, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported. The airline’s current debt exceeds 3.5 million rubles, the court in Russia’s Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region said citing Avialeasing. “That’s why Avialeasing has asked the court to declare UTair bankrupt.” The court is expected to announce the decision within five days, the press service said.

The Kutuzoff Tower in Moscow, the most valuable of the foreign properties that were once owned by the children of the bankrupt businessman Seán Quinn, is likely go up for sale next year. The office block, which two years ago was considered to have a value of approximately $180 million, is the subject of a bankruptcy process overseen by the Russian courts that involves a requirement to liquidate the asset, the Irish Times reported. The deadline for putting the building up for sale is likely to be early next year.

The Bank of Russia had no other option but to let the ruble float freely, and the decision to do so had helped stop it from hitting fresh record lows, Elvira Nabiullina, the bank’s chairwoman, said on Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ruble has lost more than 30% of its value against the dollar so far this year, hit by lower oil prices, capital outflows and Western sanctions stemming from the Ukraine crisis. After $30 billion on intervention failed to stop the ruble from falling to all-time lows in October, the central bank decided to switch to a free float from Nov. 10.

The ruble tumbled the most since 2011 after a larger-than-forecast increase of Russia’s key interest rate failed to ease concern that the economy will remain hobbled by sanctions and capital flight. The Bank of Russia raised its key rate to 9.5 percent percent from 8 percent, according to a website statement. That surprised all 31 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Governor Elvira Nabiullina is resorting to higher borrowing costs to halt a currency run even after three earlier increases failed to assuage investors concerned about President Vladimir Putin’s stance on Ukraine.

The Irish government and Russia’s A1 are planning to auction a logistics park once owned by former billionaire Sean Quinn, Kommersant reports. A1, part of billionaire Mikhail Fridman’s Alfa Group, will hold public auction on December 5 for sale of Q-Park located in Kazan. The starting price for property, which exceeds 99.500 sq. m, is RU2.575 billion (€40 million). Tenants include Efes, Bosch and Schneider Electric. Mr Quinn, once Ireland’s richest man, was one of biggest foreign investors in Russian commercial property during the Celtic Tiger years before he went bankrupt in January 2012.

Pressure is growing on Russia's central bank to adopt more radical measures to defend the tumbling rouble, such as interest rate rises, but there is no easy fix, Reuters reported in an analysis. The bank's board meets on Oct. 31 to discuss monetary policy and there is growing speculation it may soon raise rates to support the rouble, which is being hit by plunging oil prices and Western sanctions imposed over the Ukraine crisis. The bank says it is also weighing other measures, including long-term dollar loans to banks, as it tries to restore calm to markets.

The two biggest foreign banks in Russia have been heavily tapping the rouble bond market to replace funding from their parent companies in Europe as they rush to reduce their exposure to the country, the Financial Times reported. Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International and France’s Société Générale, which operate the two biggest foreign-owned bank branch networks in Russia, have both issued large amounts of rouble bonds for their Moscow-based operations in recent weeks.

Weeks after President Vladimir V. Putin annexed Crimea in March, an obscure regulatory board in Moscow known as the Market Council convened inside an office tower not far from the Kremlin to discuss the country’s wholesale electricity market. It is a colossal business, worth 2 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product, and a rich source of fees for the bank that had long held the exclusive right to service it.