Russia and Ukraine

The outrageous swings in fortune of Renaissance Capital over the past 20 years are the stuff of Hollywood legend. But what’s the next instalment for the Moscow-based investment bank? Out of Africa? Or just back to being The Russia House?

The Russian rouble is facing strong headwinds as the political fall-out over the fatal MH17 plane crash and fresh economic sanctions bite, with analysts predicting a tough year ahead for the Bric currency.

Joint investment fund undertakes new deals; Kazakhstan’s nationalized bank sell-offs set to go.

The Washington-led sanctions on Russia, as well as officials and associates in the Putin circle, are toothless, Oleksandr Shlapak, Ukraine’s post-revolution finance minister, tells Euromoney.

Hopes that Russian issuers can fund all their needs in Asia’s markets are likely to be misplaced. But it will become a more important market for them, sanctions or not.

Fallout from the Ukraine crisis has not yet hurt the country’s planned infrastructure development programme. But sanctions or not, Russia will be hard pushed to meet its long-term target in the domestic finance market alone.

Banks and their corporate clients are scrabbling to get up to speed and comply with a growing slate of US and European sanctions against Russia – or face unlimited fines and imprisonment.

The battle between the west and Russia over Ukraine is intensifying amid a full-on financial war. Euromoney investigates the foreign-currency credit crunch for Russian borrowers.

Russia’s adventures in Ukraine are adversely affecting its international issuance. And at home they will stifle ambitions to develop an international financial centre.

The crisis in Crimea should give the west pause for thought in its relations with eastern European states and with Russia.

Russia-US tensions over Ukraine could be the 'first major political conflict that is played out in international financial markets', according to Citi, as sanctions take their bite.

Treasury professionals of companies with combined annual sales of more than $250 billion have voted China, India and Russia as the worst countries to repatriate company funds from, according to Euromoney’s ‘trapped cash’ pulse survey.