Russia

Fix Price, the Russian owner of discount variety stores, filed initial paperwork for listings in London and Moscow on Monday. The company gives investors a very different sort of offering than recent European tech listings but is still providing buyers with huge growth metrics.

Ever rising stock prices, despite the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic and a looming global recession, have prompted fears that equity markets are becoming frothy or even a bubble. In such an environment, many investors begin to turn to safer assets and Vladislav Barshinov, CEO of Russia’s GV Gold, is hoping that investors will look to gold as his company considers the possibility of an IPO in 2021.

The spectre of imminent US-led sanctions against Russia has reappeared following the controversial imprisonment of opposition leader Alexey Navalny. While some say “Fortress Russia” will survive with or without sanctions, others believe the country’s already isolated capital markets and its access to funding could come under intense strain, writes Mariam Meskin.

Mass arrests following protests in Russia over the last two weeks in defence of opposition leader Alexei Navalny have increased the likelihood of US sanctions on some of the country’s leading figures. However, market experts say that new sanctions would be unlikely to cripple the country’s markets, as they have done in the past.

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Two Russian gold miners are among a number of Russian companies looking at listing possibilities in 2021 capitalising on a strong 2020 for the precious metal.

Gazprom, the Russian state oil and gas company, this week sold a dollar bond amid growing concerns about US sanctions on the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gazprom.

Sovcombank, one of Russia's largest private banks, this week raised its debut social bond — still a rare format among emerging markets borrowers in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. The bond follows an ESG loan the bank raised just weeks ago.

Turkey’s Yapi Kredi, Russia’s Credit Bank of Moscow and Banque Ouest Africaine de Banque Ouest Africaine de Développement have all approached investors this week to sound out interest in hard currency bonds.

Russia’s Sovcombank has entered the ESG loan market for the first time, raising a $350m syndicated loan. An increasing number of Russian corporates are turning to the green financing sector as a way to diversify funding.

Equity investors have begun in recent months to allocate capital away from some of the high growth firms which dominated equity capital market supply this year to more cyclical companies that are set to benefit when economies reopen from Covid-19 lockdowns. They are also looking to buy into emerging markets, predicting rising equity valuations in places like Russia and some parts of Latin America.

Sovcombank, one of Russia’s largest private banks, is making strides in its push to reshape Russia’s financial services marketplace. Dmitry Gusev, its chief executive, talks to GlobalCapital about the bank and its plans for 2021, ahead of a possible IPO.