Moscow press review for August 10, 2015
MOSCOW. Aug 10 (Interfax) - The following is a digest of Moscow newspapers published on August 10. Interfax does not accept liability for information in these stories.
POLITICS & ECONOMICS
Russia's new Far East Development Fund is expected to accumulate and invest 78 billion rubles by the end of 2025. The fund's revenues will be federal taxes and nontax revenues such as dividends, including from new businesses the fund invests in, payment for use of infrastructure built by the fund and its own tax payments, under a mechanism similar to tax increment financing (Vedomosti, p. 4).
The Russian government has published a resolution on the creation of an import substitution commission, which will hold its first meeting on Tuesday. The commission's main goal will be to implement a law passed in July that sets special rules for purchases for investment projects intended to counteract sanctions restricting equipment exports to Russia. The commission will also coordinate nonpublic government procurements (Kommersant, p. 2).
Russia's Economic Development Ministry has drafted a bill to help simplify mergers and acquisitions. It will make it possible to have shareholder agreements spell out the consequences of a company takeover for all shareholders. The changes apply to non-public companies, guaranteeing minority shareholders the option to sell their shares while protecting a future owner from unwanted shareholders (Vedomosti, p. 4).
OIL & GAS
The United States on Friday imposed sanctions against Gazprom's Yuzhno-Kirinskoye gas condensate field in the Sea of Okhotsk. U.S. companies are now barred from providing equipment for this project, which calls into question the expansion of the Sakhalin LNG plant, for which it was supposed to supply gas, as well as Gazprom's strategic cooperation with Shell (Kommersant, p. 1; Vedomosti, p. 1).
The tax system and the collapse of the ruble supported the financial performance of Russia's top oil and gas companies in the first quarter of 2015 despite the drop in oil prices, with Rosneft and Lukoil benefiting most, Moody's reported. Russian oil companies are now the most efficient in the world and offer the highest dividend yield, but investors still do not want to invest in them due to the quality of corporate governance and risks for minority shareholders, analysts said (Vedomosti, p. 12).
BANKING, FINANCE & INSURANCE
The Construction and Housing Ministry has drafted a bill on the state's subsidiary liability for deposits of Russians who choose special accounts for contributions for capital repairs to multiunit residential buildings. The bill would allow the money to be placed in high-interest deposits at the top 50 banks, and the ministry expects the state to not only insure the deposits for a certain amount, but return all accumulated funds if a bank fails. The Finance Ministry was previously opposed to this (Kommersant, p. 1).
Russia's new National Payment Card System has just barely managed to create a brand under which it still only plans to operate, and fraudsters have already managed to find a way to take advantage of the situation. They are spreading computer viruses under the guise of offers to receive the as yet nonexistent Mir payment cards, the Central Bank reported (Kommersant, p. 1).
Italy's UniCredit has signed a memorandum on the possible sale of its Ukrainian subsidiary Ukrsotsbank for a stake in ABH Holdings S.A., the Luxembourg company through which the owners of Alfa Group and their partners own banking assets in Russia, the CIS And Europe. The merger of Ukrsotsbank and Alfa Bank's Ukrainian division would create Ukraine's third largest bank by assets. The deal could be the start of closer cooperation between Alfa and the Italian group (Vedomosti, p. 10; Kommersant, p. 8).
RETAIL & CONSUMER MARKET
Despite the economic crisis and slump in consumer demand in Russia, in 2014 and the first half of 2015 food retailers beat the 2008 record for growth of retail space. The 130 largest FMCG chains expanded retail space by over 2 million square meters or 15% in 2014 and by 1.25 million m2 in the first half of 2015, Infoline reported. But only the biggest retailers added space, while small chains closed stores (Kommersant, p. 10).
TELECOMMUNICATIONS, MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY
Kreml Media has offered to buy cable music channel Muz-TV from UTV along with its debts, sources said. The deal could be worth about $20 million. Muz-TV could be folded into the 'patriotic' media group being created by Federation Fund founder Vladimir Kiselyov. The group is supposed to be based around Russian Media Group, which owns a number of popular radio stations and several TV channels (Vedomosti, p. 10).
Since Russian mobile phone retailers Euroset and Svyaznoy and mobile operators MegaFon and Vimpelcom stopped buying its mobile devices in June, Samsung has decided to boost sales through regional resellers and expand its mono-brand chain by 30%. But this will only offset part of the losses, as the retail chains boycotting Samsung sold over 50% of the company's smartphones and tablets in Russia (Kommersant, p. 7).
Interview: Sergei Bunin, CEO of Goskontsert (Vedomosti, p. 8).
AUTOMOTIVE & ENGINEERING
Russian automakers have not been able to offset the drop in domestic demand with exports as they had hoped. Car exports tumbled 27% in the first half of 2015, while commercial vehicle exports slumped 2.3%. Industry insiders attribute this to the slump in traditional CIS markets, foremost Kazakhstan. In order to compete on markets outside the CIS, Russia's auto industry needs more investment or state support (Kommersant, p. 7).
