Madonna's third Hard Candy Fitness Center in St. Petersburg, Russia, a beautifully designed 52,000 square foot space in the center of the city is projected to open in mid-2011, it was confirmed today by Mark Mastrov, Chairman of New Evolution Ventures (NeV). The announcement of this latest facility follows the recent opening of the Mexico City Hard Candy Fitness and confirmation of plans for a Hard Candy Fitness Center in Moscow.

Owner of London's Independent and Evening Standard newspapers, Alexander, a former KGB officer, opted out of lecturing on Wednesday at the Russian Business Week 2011 in London School of Economics. His letter to the participants was posted on his blog and read:

Building on the 2010 agreement with Slovakia to build a 1520 mm gauge railway line through Slovakia, from the Ukrainian border to Bratislava and Vienna, Russian Railways, RZD, is set to roll out its broad gauge railway lines to southern Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia, north Croatia and northern Italy over the next four years, RZD President Vladimir Yakunin told the Russia Business Week forum at the London School of Economics this week.

By John Bonar

A leading international banker resoundingly endorsed Moscow’s aspirations to become an international financial centre on Wednesday. Hans-Joerg Rudloff, the Chairman of Barclays Capital told an audience at the  Russia Business Week forum at the  London School of Economics that because of its “size, population, importance in world economy” and most importantly its ambitions, Russia could not continue to work through what he termed “substitute markets” in London and New York.

Secure in its placement of 10% of its shares for $3.3 bn,  VTB, Russia's second largest bank has released a slough of information demonstrating it is active from Vietnam to Krasnoyarsk and financing regional carrier UTair and the expansion of St Petersburg Metro.

Despite the best efforts of the likes of Eric Kraus and myself there are still people, some quite influential, who refuse to believe that Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the suave charming head of Russia's once-biggest oil company and once  Russia's richest man could possibly deserve to languish in a Russian jail.

To them I recommend reading the 2002 book "The Oligarchs" by David E. Hoffman who,  after studying the Russian language at Oxford University, served six years in Moscow. From 1995 to 2001, he was Moscow bureau chief, and later became  foreign editor and assistant managing editor for foreign news. 

As a Siberian court dismissed a suit by Oleg Deripaska's aluminium group Rusal against Norilsk Nickel AGM, the Arctic miner sweetened its bid to buy out Rusal's 25% share in the company by $800 million. An offer of $12 bn was rejected by Rusal last December although minority shareholder Mikhail Prokhorov was said to favour further negotiations.

EBRD, which has been mooting a mezzanine loan to Mir Detstva, a Russian distributor and producer of children's goods since last year, has agreed a long-term loan of 420 million roubles (equivalent to EUR 10 million), secured by shares of companies of the Mir Detstva group. The loan is intended to support the post-crisis balance sheet restructuring of the group, a leading distributor and producer of branded children’s goods, and help end its dependence on short-term funding. 

The EBRD has signed a loan agreement under which it will provide 1 billion roubles (equivalent to EUR 24 million) to Russia’s Monetka retail chain, mainly to fund a major upgrading of its logistics infrastructure. The seven-year senior secured loan will finance the construction of the second phase of a modern distribution centre in Ekaterinburg, as well as the opening of a distribution centre in the northern part of the Urals. This is Russia’s industrial heartland where Ekaterinburg-based Monetka has grown from a small scale venture into the leading multi-format retailer over the last 10 years.

By John Bonar

When the oligarchs discovered the opportunity to line their pockets and finance acquisitions and corporate expansion through leveraged loans they loved it. Western bankers fell over themselves in the early naughties to introduce the money-raising technique and come 2008 many Russians caught a cold as the financial tsunami wrecked their portfolio values, the cranes stopped swining among the high rise towers of Moscow city and billionaire Oleg Deripaska camped in the office fighting for his financial survival.