Russia
What was the leading Russian stock market broker in volume last year – Troika Dialog, Renaissance Capital, UBS? No, it was Alor-Invest, a brokerage little known among foreign investors, yet capable of commanding about an 11% market share of the RTS and Micex combined.
Anatoly Gavrilenkov, chairman of Alor-Invest, explains: “We are a very modest and small company. It's more of a family business than anything else. Yet despite this, we won first place for volume.”
Gavrilenkov knows he can't compete with such houses as UBS or Troika in some aspects of investment banking. “They have a lot more money than we do,” he says. “They have a lot of foreign clients, while we have only Russian clients. But in order to survive, we had to be aggressive. And now, they are obliged to take us seriously.”
There are two reasons for Alor-Invest's success. First, the brokerage took pains to reach the parts of the Russian market that bigger brokers couldn't reach. In particular, it has targeted the regions, via 15 offices. Secondly, it has used the internet to reach out to these provincial investors.