Russia

Russia's mining giant Norilsk Nickel has no plans to help bail out financially-troubled Finnish nickel miner Talvivaara, a source familiar with the Russian company's plans said, Reuters reported. Talvivaara said earlier on Thursday it was in talks with stakeholders to secure funds after a series of production disruptions at its Sotkamo mine and a fall in nickel prices put it at risk of bankruptcy. Norilsk Nickel, the world's biggest nickel and palladium producer, is Talvivaara's main customer and owns a 0.64 percent stake in the company.

Officials from cash-strapped Italian flagship carrier Alitalia SpA. will travel to Moscow next week to sound out Aeroflot's about an alliance, a person close to Alitalia said on Saturday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed local news reports about the visit but didn't elaborate. Aeroflot wasn't immediately available for comment. Alitalia is looking for partners and Italian Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi said the government will consider others apart from Air France-KLM, AF.FR -3.80% which has a 25% stake in the carrier.

A group representing leading Russian banks called for the Bank of Russia to sacrifice its ambitious plan to tame inflation in order to support flagging economic growth, The Wall Street Journal Emerging Europe blog reported. The Association of Regional Banks of Russia, a lobbying group that represents nearly half of all Russian banks, wrote in an open letter to the central bank’s governor Thursday saying that the bank’s attempt to bring inflation down to 5% next year is unlikely to succeed, and could impede growth that has already slowed to 1.5% in the first nine months of this year.

Russia’s government is temporarily seizing $7.6 billion in savings from non-state pension funds while it carries out inspections, a move critics say looks like a “confiscation” aimed at plugging a hole in next year’s state budget, The Wall Street Journal Emerging Europe blog reported. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told ministers Thursday that the government needs to check that the money Russians channel to private pension funds is safe. To do this, it will seize 244 billion rubles ($7.6 billion) from non-state pension funds and put them into the state pension fund.

When European leaders engineered a harsh bailout deal for this tiny Mediterranean nation in March, they cheered the end of an economic model fueled by a flood of cash from Russia. Wealthy Russians with money in Cyprus’s sickly banks lost billions. But the Russians, though badly bruised, are now in a position to get something that has previously eluded even Moscow’s most audacious oligarchs: control of a so-called systemic financial institution in the European Union, the International Herald Tribune reported.

President Vladimir Putin is seeking ways to shore up the economy as corporate credit dries up amid policy makers’ reluctance to cut interest rates in the face of above-target inflation, Bloomberg reported. The economy grew 1.2 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter, the slowest pace since 2009, as investment shriveled. That may mean Russia has entered its second recession in five years, according London-based to Capital Economics Ltd.

Russians who used the offshore haven of Cyprus before the collapse of the island’s banking system appear to have shrugged off the Kremlin’s calls to bring back their money to the motherland, instead opting to park their cash in the British Virgin Islands, data from the Russian central bank suggest, The Wall Street Journal Emerging Europe blog reported.

Personal loans in Russia have reached almost $275bn during the past two years as people take up to 5 loans per person. Some Russian cities see 100% of the economically active population taking out loans, RT.com reported. Russia risks seeing a retail credit default, business daily Vedomosti quotes research by Svyaznoj Bank that examined data from the country’s two biggest credit agencies NBCH and Equifax. The bank studied the credit history of people applying for loans and called the results of the study "depressing", Vedomosti quotes the bank representative.

Russia’s Sukhoi Civil Aircraft company – the maker of the Sukhoi Superjet (SSJ) – has accumulated $2 bn in debt and failed to meet its credit obligations. The problem needs to be settled by the year end, otherwise the company will default, RT.com reported. Sukhoi Civil Aircraft is now more than $600 million in debt to the State Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank), with an additional $300 million unsettled to related parties, Kommersant daily reports.

Moscow Commercial Court has extended the receivership at AMT Bank for another six months, thus supporting the receiver's request, RAPSI reported from the courtroom. The Deposit Insurance Agency requested an extension because it has failed to complete all the necessary procedures. The next hearing is scheduled for December 17. The Moscow Commercial Court declared AMT Bank bankrupt on June 20, 2012 after the Deposit Insurance Agency filed for the bank's bankruptcy. The agency was appointed as the bank's receiver in October 2011.