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A Misplaced Fear of Russian Money Posted by JohnA [Email]  (#426)  [Profile/Gallery]
(more from JohnA) on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:00:20
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New York Times
February 11, 2010
By VLADIMIR ANTONOV
Vladimir Antonov, a Russian entrepreneur and investor, is chairman of Convers Group in Moscow.
Over the past few months, there has been a chain of strange events surrounding Spyker's takeover of Saab.
During the last eight years, Saab caused a $4 billion loss for its owner, General Motors. The situation was aggravated by the economic crisis: From January to October 2009, Saab sales in Europe fell by 59 percent from the same period in 2008 while the whole European market fell by only 5 percent.
G.M., whose survival was threatened by the world financial crisis, started to get rid of its activities in Europe. For Europeans, thousands of jobs were suddenly at risk. Nonetheless, the Swedish government repeatedly declared that it did not want to spend public money to rescue this famous national brand, Saab.
What would have happened if the company had not found a new investor? Bankruptcy, with the layoff of thousands of workers. What, other than a well-prepared takeover by a company like Spyker, could have been the solution?
Yet, just in time, someone noticed that 29.9 percent of Spyker's shares belonged to my company. Surreal allegations of alleged "economic crimes," "money laundering" and other false horror stories about my business emerged. The main aim of those who should have been worried about Saab's survival now moved to ensure the exclusion of this "evil" Russian investor.
On Dec. 18, the deal between G.M. and Spyker was suspended. I was forced to give up my investment in Spyker because the Swedish government had threatened to veto the deal, insinuating that I had ties with criminal organizations. There was no proof, but rumors were spread in the media.
On Jan. 27, the takeover was concluded in a new format. G.M. representatives said they were glad to see that the Russian investor had abandoned the deal. As a result, Swedish taxpayers will take on a large burden because their government became the guarantor of a credit of €400 million granted to Spyker by the European Investment Bank.
After all the noise, we can see that what really mattered was the nationality of the investor. Several months ago, something similar happened when G.M. seemed ready to sell the German carmaker Opel. The buyer was a consortium of the Austrian-Canadian company Magna and Russia's Sberbank. The agreement was broken literally at the last minute. Why? It is hard to imagine that Sberbank, the largest state bank in Russia, really has a problem with its reputation or reliability.
Recently, another Russian businessman was forced by Swiss authorities to pay a penalty of 40 million Swiss francs over the purchase of Oerlikon by Renova, a transaction which in the authorities' opinion was accompanied by "considerable infringements" of bureaucratic formalities. Are there cases like these involving investors with nationalities other than Russian?
These incidents have nothing to do with economic freedom and transparency. It is obvious that European business has a strong prejudices against investors from Russia. There is a fear of Russia itself, of the increase of the influence of Russian businesses in the international market place. Maybe the moment has come for Europe to analyze this more attentively.
Out of economic self-interest, the United States wants to bar Russia from participating in enterprises involving advanced technologies. But is there really any reason for a competitive struggle in industry? I doubt it. You will hardly hear of high demand for Russian-made cars on the European market. Everybody knows that the Russian motor industry needs more than a decade to become even close to competitive. Some experts question whether competitiveness in this field can be reached at all.
Hence it is probable that the reasons are political. But should a private American shareholder care about politics? Should a Swedish worker care about international politics? The 2,400 workers of the Opel plant which is to be closed in Antwerp had the bitter experience of learning what happens when politics interferes with business.
The interests of Europe and the United States obviously do not coincide when it comes to crisis investments. The European economy needs capital from countries that have higher growth rates, like China, India, Brazil and Russia. They will probably recover faster than the United States and consequently will take advantageous positions in the post-crisis world economy.
It would be unreasonable to create situations in which European companies appear unattractive to Russian investors because the investors risk being exposed to humiliating procedures and public slander.
Maybe it would be fairer to trust Russian business. Maybe national prejudices can be abandoned for good. Otherwise European countries and brands will become victims of their own narrow-mindedness as Russian capital finds new, more progressive markets.
, Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:00:20 <-- Viewing This Message, Tue, 16 Feb 2010 07:34:56
, Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:33:46, Sat, 13 Feb 2010 05:25:58, Sat, 13 Feb 2010 08:02:50, Sat, 13 Feb 2010 07:45:36
, Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:13:58
, Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:09:55, Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:03:23, Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:35:06, Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:20:02, Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:18:56, Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:19:59
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