Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. has signed an agreement to acquire Natur Produkt International, JSC, a specialty pharmaceutical company in Russia.  Natur Produkt has a significant presence in the over-the-counter (OTC) segment in several categories marketed under the umbrella brand, Natur Produkt.  Key brands include AntiGrippin, a leading cough and cold remedy, Anti Angin, Sage and Eucaplyptus MA brand names, leading sore throat remedies.

Russian M&A opportunities has led to burgeoning Troika Dialogue, the investment company now part of Sberbank, to appoint two new Managing Directors of the Investment Banking Division, recruited from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Russian competitor Renaissance Capital.

Russian former finance minister Alexei Kudrin on Monday spoke against the idea put forward by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to charge a one-off fee to the owners of large state enterprises privatized in the early 1990s.

Putin, who is running for president and is expected to return the Kremlin after the March 2012 elections, suggested at the congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs last week that Russia should charge a fee to oligarchs who acquired lucrative state assets in the so-called loans-for-shares deals virtually for a song.

The panel on privatization at Russia Fprum 2012 today in Moscow included all the parties engaged in the process: CEOs of state companies, government officials, investment bankers, private equity investors and fund managers. The key outcome of the discussion was that privatization is good and necessary for Russia. But some internal contradictions and internal conflicts in the process need to be cleared up.