Posts Tagged ‘business week’
New ski resorts — in Russia’s restive Caucasus
The timing couldn’t have been worse. Russia’s government unveils a plan to build five ski resorts in the majestic, largely uncharted slopes of the Northern Caucasus. And asks executives at the World Economic Forum to join in the $15 billion investment.
The problem: The Wednesday night presentation came two days after a bomb blast pummeled the international arrivals terminal of Moscow’s largest airport, killing 35. Suspicions immediately fell on extremists from the Northern Caucasus — including Chechnya, which fought two wars with Moscow over the last 16 years, and the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan, future home to one of the new resorts.
Read More →
Facebook
Twitter
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
NewsVine
Digg
Hermitage Fund’s William Browder
The Hermitage Fund founder and former Putin ally on how exposing corruption in Russia upended his business and changed his worldview.
My grandfather was the general secretary of the American Communist Party. And as I was finishing business school in 1989, I had a romantic attraction to the Soviet Union as it was opening for business. As an investment banker in 1992, I went to the Russian town of Murmansk to advise the managers of a state-owned fleet of 100 ships. Each ship cost $20 million, but the managers were being offered the chance to buy 51 percent of the entire fleet for $2.5 million. I realized that to make money in Russia, you had to invest directly in assets that were being privatized. In 1996, I moved to Moscow and set up the Hermitage Fund, which became the largest foreign investment fund in the country.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
