Page 139 - IFR Opportunities in Russian capital markets

CHAPTER11
ifrintelligence reports/Opportunities in: Russian Capital Markets
Figure 11.1: Growth of Russian domestic mutual funds, 2000–06 (RUBm)
500,000 400,000 300,000 200,000 100,000
0
Assets (RUBm) Number of funds
2001 2002
700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0
Source: Investfunds
2000
2003 2004
2005 2006
Current investment preferences and future projections
A survey conducted by MICEX and the 'Salvador D' agency released in September 2006 found that just under half of Russians still have almost no contact with the financial sector and the vast majority have no experience of dealing with stocks. Only 2% of Russians polled said they had bought or sold shares; Russia's emerging middle class is thought to account for about 15% of the population.
In answer to the question of what they would do if they were unexpectedly given a large amount of money, 32.4% of people said they would put it in a Sberbank deposit account, 20% would start their own business, 14% would keep the money at home, 6.7% would buy shares, 5.8% would buy gold (gold prices have soared in the last two years) and 3.8% would deposit the money with a bank other than Sberbank.
Analysts and investment banks said the NAUFOR report quoted earlier, called ‘Ideal model of the stock market of Russia for the middle term’, was probably too optimistic in its projections, but no-one is denying that the size of the mutual fund industry is expected to grow by thousands of percentage points over the coming decade.
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