Russia

Russia's central bank on Friday unexpectedly cut its key refinancing rate for the first time in a year and a half, citing the uncertain outlook for the global economy, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Still, the Bank of Russia simultaneously raised its deposit rate, and economists said that the rate reshuffle represents no more than a slight easing of monetary policy amid concerns about meeting 2012 inflation targets.

On a snowy Friday evening in late March, Andrei Borodin received a call as he flew out of Moscow on a private jet. Then president of Bank of Moscow, Russia’s fifth-biggest, he found himself under mounting pressure as VTB, the state-controlled lender that is Russia’s second biggest, tried to take over his bank, the Financial Times reported in an analysis. Just hours earlier, the government’s budget watchdog had called for his suspension while it audited what it be­lieved were “dubious” loans to entities re­lated to Bank of Moscow.

Russian conglomerates Kaskol and RU-COM will increase their energy holdings by together acquiring Composite Technology Corp.'s assets out of its U.S. bankruptcy proceeding in a deal valued at more than $11 million, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The Russian companies' joint venture, called CTC Acquisition Corp., will pay $1 million in cash and take on the responsibility for at least $10.5 million of Composite Technology's liabilities, according to a purchase agreement filed Tuesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana., Calif.

The Yukos Oil Company was forced into bankruptcy by the Moscow Arbitration Court five years ago on Monday. Its assets were seized by the state, and its top managers imprisoned or chased from the country. Its legacy of progressive corporate governance and transparency was decimated in favor of shadowy state control, The Moscow Times reported in a commentary. Nobody knows for sure why the Russian government destroyed its most successful post-Soviet company.

Russian businessman Vladimir Antonov is working on a plan for Saab to pay back a loan from the European Investment Bank, the lender which he says has vetoed his proposal to buy into the ailing carmaker, Reuters reported. Antonov has been waiting in the wings to take a stake in Swedish Automobile , the listed entity that owns Saab, but his spokesman said on Thursday that the EIB had decided not to approve the Russian as a shareholder. "We are working on a way to be rid of the EIB loan," Lars Carlstrom said.

Russian cardboard mogul Boris G. Zingarevich has purchased the electric-car manufacturer Think Global AS, marking yet another financial revival for a company that’s faced demise several times throughout its 20-year existence, The Wall Street Journal Bankruptcy Beat blog reported. Previously owned by Norwegian investors who picked it up from Ford Motor Co., the Think brand will now be marketed by the newly created Electric Mobility Solutions AS, and production of the eye-catching two-door cars is set to begin in the first quarter of 2012. Terms of the deal weren’t released.

HSBC on Monday became the latest foreign bank to pull out of retail banking in Russia as large state-owned banks have come to dominate a business that had been expected to provide a rich growth opportunity for foreign institutions, The New York Times DealBook blog reported. HSBC, Europe’s largest bank by assets, said it would close five retail branches in Moscow and St. Petersburg and focus instead on providing global lending services to industrial and corporate clients.

Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom won the rights to a giant Siberian gas field destined to supply the fast-growing markets of China, a spokesman for the sale organiser said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Victory at the auction will allow Gazprom to extract the field's 2 trillion cubic metres of reserves, enough to supply the world for eight months, and forge deeper ties with China, where the Russian energy giant plans to start exporting gas in 2015.

Rosneft is set to take on Gazprom when Russia puts the Kovykta gas field on the block on Tuesday as the country's top crude producer aims to muscle in on the gas export monopoly's plans to supply China. Gazprom and state holding firm Rosneftegaz have been allowed to bid for the right to develop the Kovykta field, which is located near Lake Baikal and has reserves of 2 trillion cubic metres. That's enough to meet world demand for eight months.

The sale of the licence holder of the giant Kovykta gas field, majority-owned by Russia's TNK-BP, has been postponed for two weeks and will be held on March 1, the sale administrator said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. RUSIA Petroleum was declared insolvent by a regional court in October after TNK-BP, owned by British major BP and a quartet of Russia-connected billionaires, filed a petition to initiate bankruptcy proceedings. Initially the auction was mooted for Feb. 15 with a starting price of 15.083 billion roubles.