God Nemtsov is a moron.
Russia reformer Chubais survives assassination bid By Douglas Busvine
MOSCOW, March 17 (Reuters) - Anatoly Chubais, head of Russia's state power monopoly, survived an assassination attempt on Thursday by assailants who detonated a roadside bomb and sprayed his convoy with automatic gunfire.
The 49-year-old Chubais, one of Russia's best-known figures, came to prominence as the architect of post-Soviet economic reforms under which two dozen "oligarchs" acquired vast wealth while ordinary people suffered a huge slump in living standards.
He is now chief executive of Unified Energy System (EESR.RTS), and the prime mover behind reforms to introduce competition to the power sector of the world's largest country.
Chubais told a hastily arranged press briefing that he had been aware of a plan to kill him, but would not say who he suspected of carrying out the attack.
"I have an idea of who could have taken out a contract on me," a shaken but defiant Chubais said from the safety of UES headquarters in Moscow. "We had reason to believe something like this might happen." Chubais was travelling to work from his country home along a narrow stretch of the Minsk Highway at 9:30 a.m. (0630 GMT) when a roadside bomb rocked his two-car cortege and attackers opened fire with automatic weapons.
Chubais said his armoured BMW had been able to flee the scene despite being hit in the windscreen, hood and front tyre.
Security guards for Chubais travelling in a Mitsubishi Lancer returned fire at two hitmen, who escaped into the surrounding woods. Police said they had found a green Saab they believe was used as a getaway car by the assassins.
The bomb blast had a force equivalent to at least 500 grams of TNT, investigators said. Television footage from the scene showed a large crater at the side of the two-lane highway.
Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the lower house of parliament, was the highest-ranking official to condemn the attack. "I believe law enforcers will track down those who ordered and perpetrated this crime," he said.
YOUNG REFORMER
Chubais, a leader of the Union of Right Forces party, quit active politics in 1998 to take over UES. He was ranked in a recent opinion poll as Russia's most influential businessman.
The tough-talking economist was a leading member of the "young reformers" close to former Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar and architect of a 1990s privatisation drive which led to vast wealth being concentrated in very few hands.
Critics accused Chubais of launching an era of "wild capitalism" when gangland-style killings became a widely used method to acquire control of businesses.
Only last November, Chubais told a newspaper he had been the target of three assassination attempts.
"It had purely political motives," he said at the time. "I was hated because I 'had sold Russia'."
POLITICAL ATTACK
Chubais ran former President Boris Yeltsin's successful re-election campaign in 1996, surviving allegations he had set up an illegal election slush fund. He quit politics to go into business just as Russia's 1998 financial crisis hit.
He now heads a company with annual revenues of $21.6 billion and a market capitalisation of $12.6 billion, making it Russia's seventh-largest.
Chubais' political party, which lost its seats in parliament in 2003 and accuses President Vladimir Putin of undermining democracy, labelled the attack "a political crime."
"Chubais is a public figure," said Boris Nemtsov, an ally. "For me it is completely obvious this assassination attempt has a political character and is not connected to the reforms of UES."
UES shares did not react to the attack, rising 0.8 percent.
Analysts say transforming UES from Soviet-era monolith into a functioning power market capable of promoting Russia's economic development cannot happen without Chubais, who vowed to press ahead with his power reform project.
"Everything that I have done -- in reforming the country's power sector, and in uniting the country's democratic parties -- I will continue doing, with twice the strength," he said.
UES last hit the headlines when Chubais adviser Valery Pasat was detained a week ago in Moldova.
Pasat, a former Moldovan defence minister, was detained on suspicion of defrauding the budget by selling warplanes cheaply to the United States. Pasat denies any wrongdoing. Analytical department of RIA RosBusinessConsulting March 17, 2005 Market knew of Chubais attack?
Over the past few days, eyes of market traders have been fixed on events surrounding RAO Unified Energy Systems of Russia. Apparently, someone has been interested in reducing the electricity monopoly’s capitalization - the company has lost 10 percent of its value in the last six days.
This became very clear on Wednesday morning, when RAO UES shares slumped 1.5 percent. Other blue chips also edged down. The power giant dipped 4.63 percent by Wednesday evening, slightly ahead of YUKOS, which lost 5.67 percent.
Traders and analysts watched the movement of electricity stocks throughout the day. Some observers said a ‘big buyer’ of RAO UES stocks was reported on the market, said to be the company’s shareholder who wanted to raise his stake to 20-25 percent within two weeks. Other experts think it is minority shareholders in RAO UES, with stakes between 3 and 8 percent, who decided to sell their stock.
But most analysts see Wednesday’s decline as an ordinary correction. Indeed, news about the privatization of wholesale energy generating companies, eagerly awaited by traders and their clients, will not come before the end of this year, or even later.
However, the attack on RAO UES chief Anatoly Chubais on Thursday morning led to speculation that someone on the market knew about the planned attack and was selling his stake in RAO UES, anticipating the inevitable fall in the company’s stock.
Privatization of wholesale power generating companies in which the government has a 52 percent stake and which are seen by private investors as the most attractive, though at the same time the most risky, assets has long been awaited by potential investors. The scheme of privatization has been debated for more than a year and a half already. Initially, the plan was to distribute shares in the privatized power generators in proportion to shareholders’ stakes in RAO UES.
But the economy ministry did not support this scenario. Economy minister German Gref accused RAO UES’s management of plans to create a new monopoly after the reform, instead of a competitive market.
A compromise solution was found at that time to hold auctions where both RAO UES shareholders and other investors would be allowed to bid for stakes in wholesale and regional power generators. This seemed to suit everyone, including the company’s shareholders, top managers and officials.
However, this scenario was abandoned after the resignation of Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and his Cabinet. New premier Mikhail Fradkov said he had to re-consider the situation with the privatization of electricity assets. He’s still thinking it over.
Analysts reacted differently to the fall in RAO UES stock once the most attractive blue chip on the Russian market. “According to our information, a big seller emerged on the market who decided to raise his stake in the power giant to 20-25 percent,” Anatoly Kaplin at ATON investment specialists told RBC Daily, noting that “this doesn’t look like a technical
correction.”
“Some trader must have insider information. This is the only way I can explain the decline in RAO UES stocks,” said an analyst with a large investment firm who asked not to be named.
RAO UES’s 4.6 percent fall on Wednesday found a plausible explanation on Thursday morning, when the company’s chief Anatoly Chubais was attacked by unidentified gunmen on his way to work from his country home in the Zhavoronki settlement near Moscow. Chubais emerged unscathed. “Neither he himself, nor his guards nor driver have been injured,” his office reported.
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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