Director of Equity Financing, FINAM Investment Company, Moscow
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein sent a letter to President Vladimir Putin
announcing that his company will soon expand its Moscow offices
Despite the negative news we frequently hear about Russia and the Russian economy, last week Russians received more positive signs from the world investor community. I mentioned earlier on my blog major investments by IFC and CISCO in Russia. This morning the news comes directly from Goldman Sachs. The multinational investment bank amazed us with a very unusual effort executed by its CEO, Lloyd C. Blankfein. Mr. Blankfein sent a letter to President Putin, and the Kremlin administration highlighted this letter in a statement on its official web-site. Here is a translated excerpt:
“Foreign correspondents point to significant growth in the magnitude of Russia in the world economy. This is noted in particular, by L. Blankfein, USA, head of Goldman Sachs, a company that is involved in global investment projects. He would like to discuss in Moscow key issues of world economic tendencies, as well as suggestions for the expansion of [Goldman Sachs] contacts with the Russian government and private partners.”
Former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson at The White House
We know that Goldman Sachs pays a lot of attention to Russia (in fact their analysts were the first to use the term "BRIC" to describe the world’s largest developing economies in 2003--BRIC is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Actually, Goldman Sachs was one of the first Western investment banks to open offices in Moscow way back in 1998, with former President George H.W. Bush participating in the ceremonies. Would they quickly become a major player in the Russian market today? We know that Goldman Sachs has chosen an organic growth pattern in Russia – preferring not to follow their peer group strategy of buying into local entities. In 2005 Goldman Sachs tried to acquire the Aton Capital Group, but the deal failed. Will this letter to President Putin mean a new breakthrough for the bank?
Moscow’s BUSINESS FM radio interviewed several Russian financial experts who note that Goldman Sachs is one of the last banks to come back to Russia after the 1998 default. However, this will be a rather tedious effort since many of the world’s biggest financial players are already here, and a number of Asian banks are actively working to increase their presence in Russia.
You can read the original post at Vladimir Kuznetsov's blog, Equity Financing in Russia. The views expressed in this post and on his blog are the personal opinions of Vladimir Kuznetsov, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the FINAM Investment Company.
