A date for Asian diaries:
Event: Russia – Capital Raising and Investment Summit – Hong Kong
When: April 12 – 14
Where: The Four Seasons, HKKeynote Speaker: Ronald Joseph Arculli, chairman of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd.
Goal: To attract a broad array of Asian financial market participants already active in, or interested in Russian financing and investments.
Apparently the forum will examine:
* The link that Hong Kong will play between Russia and China
* Capital markets opportunities: equity and debt
* Opportunities in Russian Distressed and Troubled Assets
* Exit strategies and liquidity in Russian investments
* M&A – outbound and inbound opportunities
Now, the big Russian/Hong Kong news recently was aluminum group Rusal’s big ticket IPO on the Hong Kong bourse last month, where it raised $2.2 bn.
Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who controls Rusal, is now considering listing his electric power company En+ Power in Hong Kong too, in an effort to raise up to $1bn.
That is despite the fact that shares in Rusal shares fell sharply on their debut late last month. The stock has remained persistently weak, trading at HK$8.47 on Friday ahead of the Chinese new year holiday, against a flotation price of HK$10.80.
Maybe the intention with En+Power is to try and price the issue more accurately. Either that or find another group of investors happy to take 20 per cent haircuts.
With London now very much out in the cold as far as Russian IPOs are concerned, the appeal of Hong Kong would appear to be simple: access to Chinese capital. Two Russian miners, Metelloinvest and SUEK, are also expected to sell shares in Hong Kong later this year.
This budding relationship in Sino-Russian capital markets, staged in Hong Kong, is interesting given recent claims by former US treasury secretary Hank Paulson that Russia proposed to China they both dump Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds in 2008 to help foment the financial crisis.
Financial cold war anyone?