Moscow press review for October 4, 2012
MOSCOW. Oct 4 (Interfax) - The following is a digest of Moscow newspapers published on October 4. Interfax does not accept liability for information in these stories.
OIL & GAS
Lithuania is threatening to file a $1.87 billion lawsuit against Gazprom in Stockholm. The country believes it has overpaid for gas in the past eight years. However, local officials still hope to reach an agreement with the Russian gas giant without the courts (Vedomosti, p. 7).
Gazprom Neft's Serbian subsidiary NIS plans to bid in a tender for a shale oil deposit in the country. This would be the first shale oil project in Serbia and the company's first foray into this segment. Analysts are skeptical about the scale of Serbia's shale oil reserves, but believe NIS has a good chance of winning access to them (Kommersant, p. 12).
Interview: German Khan, Executive Director and Co-owner of TNK-BP (Kommersant, p. 14).
UTILITIES
IDGC Center wants to buy local power grid companies from the municipal authorities of seven cities in order to consolidate up to 90% of the power transmission market. State owned IDGC Holding, which controls interregional distribution grid companies, has long wanted to consolidate grids in regions where it has a presence (Kommersant, p. 12).
BANKING, FINANCE & INSURANCE
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, despite opposition from Russia's largest banks, on Wednesday approved plans to raise the threshold for government deposit insurance to 1 million rubles from the current 700,000 rubles. In order to prevent the migration of deposits to banks with riskier policies, the increase will be accompanied by a number of restrictions on payments to depositors (Kommersant, p. 1; Vedomosti, p. 7).
Express consumer loans generate little profit for Russian banks, who earn most of their commissions by selling insurance to borrowers. Sberbank, the country's biggest lender, could undermine this business with the launch of its own express credit service at points of sale (Vedomosti, p. 1).
Promsvyazbank is the first Russian bank prepared to carry out an IPO at a price that is below its equity capital, based on the price guidance for the offering announced Wednesday. This indicates how badly the bank needs to raise funds. It hopes to raise $345 million-$414 million with the sale of GDR (Kommersant, p. 10; Vedomosti, p. 9).
RETAIL & CONSUMER MARKET
The Moscow city government plans to offer concessions on hospitals. The first in line is city clinical hospital No. 6, for which the European Medical Center is planning to bid. AlfaStrakhovanie is also showing an interest in the concessions (Vedomosti, p. 1).
Interview: Igor Krylov, CEO of Pharmstandard (Vedomosti, p. 5).
TELECOMMUNICATIONS, MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY
Marshall Capital Partners co-owner Konstantin Malofeyev not only owns about 10% of shares in national telecommunications provider Rostelecom, but is also an investor in InVenture Partners. The $100 million venture fund is managed be prominent investment banker Anton Inshutin, who was appointed to the board of directors of Rostelecom in June (Kommersant, p. 1).
Russia's Communications & IT Oversight Service, citing the new law on protecting children from harmful information, is recommending that children under the age of 18 should not be allowed access to public WiFi networks in restaurants, parks, the metro and shopping malls. It is unclear how this would be enforced and by whom (Vedomosti, p. 1).
Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov will hold a meeting Thursday with the potential founders of a new company that would operate mobile telecom infrastructure - Russia's top three mobile operators, Megafon, Vimpelcom and MTS, and the Russian Direct Investment Fund. National telecommunications provider Rostelecom will apparently not take part in the project (Vedomosti, p. 7).
AUTOMOTIVE & ENGINEERING
Continuing their fight against foreign competitors, Russian truck makers are calling for tighter certification requirements for trucks that are imported individually, primarily from China, and have up to a 10% share of the market. They claim the trucks meet Euro 4 standards only on paper (Kommersant, p. 9).