| Headline: Gazprom goes under the knife Source: Euromoney Date: July 2001 Author: Ben Aris
“It was not just a fundamental victory, but a symbolic one,” says Dmitry Abdayev, an oil and gas analyst with United Financial Group, a Moscow brokerage. “It shows that the government is not going to tolerate the corporate governance abuses in Russia’s big companies any more.” Investors welcomed what they are calling a “landmark decision”, A change at the top of Gazprom is more than welcome. Although Putin has been pushing through numerous reform measures this year, they have mainly dealt with such nuts-and-bolts issues as deregulation and the customs code. Reforming Russia’s powerful natural monopolies got bogged down in political infighting at the end of last year, and little progress has been made until recently. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||