Page 7 - bne_newspaper_April_19_2019

The Regions This Week
April 19, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Eastern Europe
Moscow's Basmanny District Court sanctioned the arrest in absentia of former Ukrainian defence minister and presidential candidate Anatoliy Hrytsenko, who is charged with "public calls for terrorism", after he called for “blowing up Russian trains.”
Former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s popularity reached an all time high of 70% of the respondents according to independent pollster the Levada Center, as cited by RBC with reference to the March survey. Only 19% of respondents saw Stalin in a negative light.
Sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska says he is ready to give up control of the
GAZ Group automotive conglomerate as he manoeuvres to strike a joint venture deal with Germany’s Volkswagen. Volkswagen and GAZ, the maker of the iconic Volga saloon, have resumed negotiations on the expansion of their partnership in car production, bne IntelliNews reported.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman is going to fire the CEO of the nation's natural gas monopoly Naftogaz Andriy Kobolev if the company refuses to cut the price of gas sold for households before April 24.
The EU Council approved a European gas directive on April 15 that is expected to delay commissioning of the Russia-backed Nord Stream 2 gas line – and potentially leave it half empty. Extending EU rules to non-EU pipelines, the directive will force Gazprom to “unbundle” or hand over operation of the line to a company independent of Russia’s state gas producer.
The Belarusian economy grew by 1.1% year- on-year in January-March following a 0.8% y/y growth in January-February, according to national statistics agency Belstat. In April, the Interna- tional Monetary Fund (IMF) revised downward its forecasts for the economic growth in Belarus in 2019 from 3.1% year-on-year to 1.8% y/y.
The board of Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank has recommended paying RUB16 per share as dividends for 2018, or a total of RUB361.391bn (5.6bn), CEO German Gref told reporters. The pay- out is more than last year and accounts for 43.5% of the bank’s net profit calculated under IFRS.
International ratings agency S&P Global Ratings af- firmed its 'B-/B' long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on Ukraine with stable outlook, Interfax Ukraine reported.
Russia’s industrial output grew 1.2% on the year and 10.3% on the month in March after rising 4.1% and 0.4% on the month in February, the Federal State Statistics Service said. The result was a slow- down after February’s surprisingly strong result.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed the newly created bankruptcy code, legislation that is aimed to better protect the interests of creditors in relation to their insolvent debtors. The law simplifies the procedures of debt restructuring, debtor financial recovery and liquidation.
Russia's largest bank state-controlled Sberbank gained control over the Centre of Speech Tech- nologies (CRT) speech and face recognition developer, buying 51% from Gazprombank-affiliat- ed companies. Reportedly Digital Horizon venture fund will also get 10% share in the company.
Rosneft pays out 50% of IFRS incomes as dividend.
Rosneft's BoD yesterday recommended a final dividend of RUB11.33 per share for 2018, implying a 2.6% yield and is 50% of income under IFRS.
Russia's natural gas giant Gazprom might
have to rely on Linde industrial group to supply technology for its Baltic LNG plant after Shell pulled out of the project. Recently Gazprom has considerably upgraded the project of its LNG terminal Baltic LNG on the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga, but also confirmed that its main partner Royal Dutch Shell would be quitting the project.