Private Equity Russia

Elbrus Capital, the spin-off of Renaissance Private Equity,  has announced that it plans to make $180 million of private equity investments in Russian companies in 2010.

Investments will be made through a new direct investment fund at Elbrus, managed by Dmitry Kryukov, formerly of Renaissance Private Equity; Alexander Savin, former President of investment company A1; and  Robert Thielen, founder of Waterland Private Equity.

The Fund is looking for either significant minority stakes or controlling interest in growth oriented companies.

Elbrus Capital’s current portfolio includes: DST, the Russian Internet and social media company (Mail.ru, Odnoklassniki.ru, Vkontakte.ru) and Media One, a Russian television and radio company.

Stanislav Song and Hamid Gayibov, both of JP Morgan in Moscow have reportedly moved to Xenon Capital Partners, an M&A boutique set up last year to advise the Russian state on acquisition of domestic and foreign energy assets.

Song and Gayibov join Natalia Tsukanova, Kamil Burganov and Anton Voronin, who are all also former JP Morgan bankers.

Xenon reportedly has a mandate as investment manager for “the largest state-owned energy fund, and a range of M&A mandates for state-owned corporates in the energy sector.”

Source: Emergingmarkets.me

TransCreditBank, the bank of Russia’s monopoly rail transportation company Russian Railways, or RZD, is launching a full service investment bank to work in equity, debt, derivatives, corporate finance and m&a.

The new group will be called TKB Capital.

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Adalet Djabiev is the founder and CEO of Al-Shams Capital, an Islamic investment and financial company incorporated in Russia and regulated by the Russian Securities Commission. Although the Russian Securities Commission doesn’t have explicitly recognize Islamic finance, CEO Djabiev says that Al-Shams is by its nature and through the company’s articles of memorandum, a Shariah-compliant company.

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Successful entrepreneur and business leader Victoria Tigipko, the wife of Ukrainian Presidential Candidate and potential future Prime Minister Sergei Tigipko, has announced that she will be creating a venture capital and private equity fund to support innovative technology-driven companies and Internet startups in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

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The State Agency of Ukraine For Investments and Innovations head Lyudmila Suprun recently met with Altana Capital (formerly Upras Capital) founder Anatoliy Amelin regarding development of state policy in terms of innovative investments and improvement of the investment environment.  According to the agency, Altana Capital was invited to participate in the process of creating a national venture fund for investment into innovative projects.

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Kommersant has reported that Renaissance Group is restructuring its asset management division, Renaissance Investment Management into two separate units that will focus respectively on private client wealth management and institutional asset management.  This decision was taken due to the weakening position of Renaissance Investment Management in the market, largely due to the investment environment, management and ownership shakeups at the group level and the exodus of key managers and clients from the division over the past year.

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In the second half of 2010 The, Russian Venture Company will open a private equity fund for Infrastructure Innovation with committed capital of 2 billion rubles (approximately $67 million), according to Yan Ryazantsev, RVC’s Investment Director.

By innovation infrastructure, Ryazantsev told Interfax-Sibir, is meant the complete complex of services that support innovation and the needs of start-up companies.

Ordinarily, The Russian Venture Company works either through appointed management companies on a fund level, or manages and supplies funding entirely through its own resources.  In this fund, according to Ryazantsev, government and private funds will be jointly employed on a project level.

The Moscow Times reports today that Jochen Wermuth of Wermuth Asset Management has announced that the firm will be raising a $200 million Russia-focused private equity fund this year.

The Greater Europe Private Equity fund will not be sector-specific, but will focus on consumer oriented companies in areas such as cable television and high-speed Internet. The fund will also focus on consumer-debt-collection, an industry that Wermuth has current portfolio investments in.

Wermuth Asset Management currently has $400 million under management, and has overseen over $1 billion of investments into Russia over the past decade.

A road show for The Greater Europe Private Equity Fund is scheduled to begin in March.