The flight of the Russian phoenix
UralSib looks to the regions for growth
"It’s been a long and sometimes painful process but the transition to a market from a centrally planned economy has finally taken hold," says Peter Halloran, founder and chief executive of Russian asset manager Pharos Financial Group. Resident in Moscow since 1995, Halloran has first-hand experience of the highs and lows of Russia’s experiment with capitalism, but for all the trials and tribulations he remains confident that the country has a bright future. Pharos, which was founded in 1997 with seed capital from former employers CS First Boston and Soros Fund Management, is looking to expand rapidly in the course of the next 12 to 18 months, with the aim of raising funds under management from about $150 million at present to $1 billion. Halloran believes that after a year in which the Russian equity markets have underperformed, they are set for a re-rating in 2008. "Top line GDP growth of over 7% is filtering down into corporate profits and political risk is diminishing, which means the markets is getting cheaper all the time." Not that marketing investment opportunities in Russia is a no-brainer.