Co-owner of Russia's Summa group detained. It’s a very important story about Putin 4.0 Let me explain 1/ reuters.com/article/us-rus…
2/ Info on reasons for Magomedov’s arrest is patchy. It happens amid conflict with Transneft over price of Summa stake in NMTP #coincidence
3/ Private Summa and Transneft, Russian oil pipeline monopoly, are about to end 7 years of troubled partnership in NMTP, Russia's largest port, where they jointly control 50,1% shares af.reuters.com/article/commod…
4/ Summa reportedly wants to get a fair market price for its crown jewel, while Transneft doesn't want to pay much. And when the conflict is at its peak, the police suddenly goes after some skeletons in Magomedov's closet (hard to find a Russian oligarch that doesn't have them)
5/ If it's really about NMTP, the outcome is easy to predict. It's going to be another Sistema vs. Rosneft, with SOE easily winning against an oligarch ft.com/content/94a0c0…
6/ Few years back It wasn't that easy for powerful CEOs of Russian SOEs to go after private assets they like just using courts and police. For example, Igor Sechin had to pay for many private assets that Rosneft acquired, and not only to TNK-BP, but to Igor Makarov's Itera
7/ Main reason for that - the Kremlin used to care about FDI and Russia's reputation among investors in London, NYC or Frankfurt. YUKOS affair or the whole @Billbrowder issue were seen as negative scenarios to be avoided. But not anymore following sanctions, CATSA etc.
8/ As conflict with the West deepens, many Russian players (powerful SOEs, friends of Putin, siloviks) feel emboldened to go after assets they like using simple tools. Putting your hard-grained opponent in prison is the best negotiation tactic for a business dispute in Russia
9/ Why care about what foreign investors will think, when FDI is not coming to Russia anyway because of sanctions? The argument about Russia's reputation in the West is loosing currency in the Kremlin, and so are people who were in charge of handling ties to EU/US business elite
10/ If Sechin can go after Bashneft, why can't other friends of Putin who are on the sanctions lists go after assets they like? Redistribution of assets may become major trend in Russia under Putin 4.0. Rising level of Russia-West confrontation following #Skrypal helps a lot
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