Analysis-Western investors spooked as Moscow mulls compulsory share purchase plan
By Sinead Cruise, Elena Fabrichnaya and Alexander Marrow
LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) — Western investors in Russian companies are bracing for a new presidential decree under consideration in Moscow which they fear could force them to sell their shareholdings to the Russian government at big discounts.
The potential decree, which could give Russia a «super pre-emptive right» to buy shares in strategic companies from foreign shareholders, marks the latest blow to investors holding Russian assets that were worth several billions of dollars prior to February 2022.
Russia has been trying to cut foreign ownership and influence over its biggest listed companies since President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine, triggering sweeping Western sanctions.
These methods include cancelling special investment programs originally designed to increase the flow of international capital into Russian companies and bypassing global banks in the supervision of those schemes, resulting in losses for some investors and the disappearance of some shares they owned.
Ivan Chebeskov, head of the finance ministry's financial policy department, told Reuters that amendments to a presidential decree were underway and that possible changes could give Russia's government a «super pre-emptive right» to buy shares in strategic companies from exiting foreigners.
«This super pre-emptive right will work only in specific cases, with specific companies,» Chebeskov said on the sidelines of a financial forum in Moscow on Nov. 14. «The exact list has still not been approved».
«The idea was that this concerns only those strategic companies in which the state already has a share,» Chebeskov said. «That is to say, this is a rather narrow list of companies.»
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