Moscow press review for November 16, 2011
MOSCOW. Nov 16 (Interfax) - The following is a digest of Moscow newspapers published on November 16. Interfax does not accept liability for information in these stories.
VEDOMOSTI
Gazprom has disclosed the share of Russian sales that it has ceded to its competitors. Gazprom Deputy Chairman Valery Golubev made public the company's evaluation of independent gas producers' share on the domestic market. His presentation suggests that independent producers may contribute 98.5 billion cubic meters of gas to the unified gas transportation system in 2011, or 26.8% of all supplies on Russian territory expected this year (368.2 billion cubic meters). ('Yielding Russia')
The financial crisis will last several years, but the euro will remain strong and will be dominating, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development President Thomas Mirow said in an interview with Vedomosti when asked about his outlook on the euro's future. Mirow does not expect that some countries could leave the Eurozone. He also opined that Russia's economy is currently in a better condition than the European one, but it will have to compete for foreign investors with China and Brazil. ('Capitals Won't Come Easily, Says Thomas Mirow, European Bank For Reconstruction And Development President')
Sberbank has become the third largest bank in Europe in terms of its capitalization. It cost $60 billion on November 14, which is $3 billion more than BNP Paribas following it on the list. Sberbank is currently valued higher than UBS, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and Royal Bank of Scotland, trailing only Britain's HSBC ($123.6 billion) and Spain's Banco Santander ($68.2 billion). Sberbank plans to be among the top ten most expensive public banks in the world by 2014. ('Third In Europe')
MegaFon's OIBDA margin decreased by 4.2 percentage points to 41.9% in the third quarter of 2011. The operator attributes this drop to the fact that it has started to pay more dealer commissions for new subscribers and for payment processing. ('MegaFon Generous With Dealers')
While Skylink, which Rostelecom plans to buy from Svyazinvest, is valued within a range of 7 billion to 11 billion rubles, Svyazinvest is unlikely to sell it cheaper than at 9.4 billion rubles. ('Skylink Valued In Big Way')
KOMMERSANT
A joint project of the Russian automaker GAZ and FAW envisions the production of 10,000 Chinese trucks a year by the Ural Automotive Plant, part of the GAZ group, starting 2012. A VTB loan amounting to 38 billion rubles will help finance the project, as well as the group's entire record investment program for 2012, which will refinance its previous borrowings and postpone the repayment of the principal debt for two years. (Page 11, 'Chinese To Come To Russia From Urals')
VTB Capital and Georges Polinski may buy back European Media Group (EMG) operating the radio networks Europa Plus and Retro FM from the French-based group Lagardere. EMG is valued at $130 million-$200 million. (Page 9, 'VTB Looking For Window To Europa Plus')
