Word: russian
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...years, agonizing over when and how to jump in. In April the company finally took the plunge, announcing a $1.9 billion deal to acquire Eldorado, Russia's leading specialist retailer of consumer electronics and domestic appliances, with more than 600 stores. But Dixons is still nervous about the Russian investment climate, and its worries haven't been helped by recent problems at high-profile Western firms, including BP. So the firm has made an arrangement in which it won't have to start paying for Eldorado for at least two years. In essence, Dixons has given itself a trial period...
...executives would describe Russia as "no risk," and the mixture of apprehension and opportunism with which Dixons is entering the market perfectly captures the feelings of Western investors about the country's business climate. The Russian economy is powering ahead, propelled by the high price of oil, Russia's key export. Growth exceeded 7% in each of the past two years and is expected to be about 5.5% this year, more than triple the euro-zone average. Many Russians are still poor and live in wretched conditions, but on the whole, household income is up, and especially in big cities...
Since President Vladimir Putin came to power, the Russian economy has staged a dramatic comeback after its near collapse in 1998. But along with red tape and corruption, companies face government meddling, primarily in the form of a highly unpredictable tax-enforcement policy. The most battered victim is Yukos, the former Russian oil giant that is in its death throes after being hit with multibillion-dollar back-tax claims that its erstwhile owners say were part of a Kremlin campaign against them. A Moscow court last month sentenced Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Yukos chief executive and a major shareholder...
Foreign firms too are vulnerable. Russian tax authorities recently slapped BP's joint oil venture in Russia, TNK-BP, with a $1 billion back-tax bill for 2001. The move has caused dismay at BP in London and prompted chief executive John Browne to visit Moscow last month, where he met with Putin. The Russian leader reassured Browne, "We were not mistaken when we supported your decision two years ago" and praised the company for being "a good corporate citizen." Meanwhile, the Japanese tobacco company JTI, which makes Winston and Camel brands at a $400 million state...
...Philippine American Life Insurance is the largest insurer. His mission: make clear to President Ferdinand Marcos that foreign investors were uneasy with the unstable government; he should step down or conduct fair elections. (Marcos didn't listen and ultimately fled in disgrace.) In the early 1990s Greenberg met with Russian President Boris Yeltsin at the Kremlin and won approval for an AIG investment there...