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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Death can be a coincidence, but not in the Russian aluminium business. So when Dmitry Bosov died of a pistol shot at his home near Moscow on the evening between May 5 and May 6, and Anatoly Bykov was arrested by federal agents in Krasnoyarsk on May 7, everyone with well […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow There are two reasons why  the aluminium metal markets are not making long-term bets on the price of the metal, the alumina required to make it, and the share prices of the metal producers, including Russia’s aluminium monopoly United Company Rusal. The first reason is that the US Treasury Secretary Stephen […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow There are many Russian reasons why no Russian, man or woman, has trusted Oleg Deripaska (lead picture, on the wall), control shareholder and chief executive of the state aluminium monopoly Rusal (Russian Aluminium), for more than a few months at a time. The reasons have varied from business to business, contract […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow When you are a Russian oligarch with a 20-year record of settling out of court with friends, partners and investors accusing you of deceit; when you have a 7-year record of failing to sustain your share value in a genuine stock market, what do you do next? You announce to a […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Oleg Deripaska, control shareholder of Rusal, the Russian state aluminium monopoly, is the leading investor of Russian funds in offshore businesses which have failed. He is also Russia’s largest corporate debtor.  Noone else in the circle of President Vladimir Putin has performed so improvidently and unpatriotically. When the costs are counted […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow In “Any Old Iron”, a popular British music-hall song of a century ago, the cockney comedian Harry Champion made audiences laugh at the vanity of people showing off wealth they don’t have, and at pretentiousness in general. In our century there’s said to be a homosexual come-on in the words of […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Oleg Deripaska has launched an attack on Leonid Mikhelson, GennadyTimchenko and Kirill Shamalov in an oligarch showdown which President Vladimir Putin must decide, because Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev cannot. Not since 2008, when Deripaska appealed to Putin for support of his attempt to take Norilsk Nickel away from Vladimir Potanin, has […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Rusal announced on March 9 that its earnings for 2015 were up, and its profit too. But Rusal’s share price, listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, shot downwards by one of the largest one-day falls in months. Hong Kong Exchange sources say the Rusal share is so illiquid, there is […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow As the Kremlin’s apparatchik for the state aluminium monopoly, Oleg Deripaska (lead image), chief executive of United Company Rusal, has a personal price problem which threatens to turn into an income problem for Russians. If it does that, and loss of income turns into negative opinion polls and protest votes, Deripaska […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow On what the Paris Agreement for climate change (COP21) should have decided last Saturday, no Russian business figure has been as outspoken as Oleg Deripaska (lead image), chief executive and control shareholder of the Russian aluminium monopoly, Rusal. “Balderdash”, Deripaska said of the agreement terms during a whistlestop interview with a […]