Global Asset Allocation Summit - Europe

Opal Financial Group is proud to present the Global Asset Allocation Summit, an event designed to explore strategies and techniques employed to augment returns and mitigate risk in global asset allocation.

Set to take place February 2009, this event addresses asset allocation strategies relevant to Public Pensions, Endowments, Foundations, Taft-Hartley Funds and Family Offices.

Event Organiser: Opal Financial Group
Location: United States - Carlsbad, CA
Venue: La Costa Resort & Spa
Date(s): 01/02/2009 - 02/02/2009

Web Address: Global Asset Allocation Summit

Private equity in Russia

The opportunities for investors prepared to take a risk by allocating cash to a Russia-focused fund are boundless, argues Holly A Nielsen of Debevoise & Plimpton.

Private equity firms are already increasing their presence in the area, and for the first time individual Russian investors are making significant contributions to private equity funds.

Viktor Vekselberg

Viktor Vekselberg is Russia's fifth-wealthiest individual, with a personal fortune of SFr8.1 billion ($6.52 billion) made in oil and aluminium.

Married with two children, he lives in Switzerland having recently bought a luxury apartment in Zurich. He is an avid collector of Fabergé eggs.

He is chairman of the Renova Group, which has had a long association with Zug-based commodities firm Glencore but started acquiring stakes in Swiss manufacturing companies in 2006.

The holding company briefly teamed up with Austrian investment company, Victory Holding, to create a third enterprise, named Everest. But the partnership soon broke up because of strategic differences and Renova started buying Victory out of their joint ventures.

Allianz ROSNO Asset Management

Dmitry Vasyutinsky, Managing Director Alternative Investments.

Mr. Vasyutinsky has 17 years of investment management experience in private equity, real estate, and venture capital. Since joining Allianz ROSNO in 2004 Dmitry played a key role in building the firm’s alternative investments business including venture capital funds, real estate, and private equity. He led the team that in 2006 launched Russia’s first public private venture capital funds that combined private and government funding. The aim of Russia’s public private VC funds is to act as catalysts in promoting investment into early stage technology ventures.

Dmitry received a Sloan Master in Management degree from London Business School and a graduate degree in economics from the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia. He serves on the boards of TViGO Entertainment, Mobile Innovations, Microbor, and Legos. Dmitry is a frequent speaker at investment conferences and is known as an active promoter of alternative investments in Russia.

**** Allianz ROSNO Asset Management is based in Moscow, Russia and is part of Allianz SE, one of the world’s leading financial services groups.

Russian Venture Company

Yan Ryazantsev, Investment Director, Russian Venture Company.

Yan Ryazantsev has been the Founder and President of the New Systems Co., one of the few Russian innovation firms. During the period of 1990 till 1992 the company has funded and participated in the development of several projects in the field of alternative energy.

Before New Systems, Mr. Ryazantsev had been one of the few pioneers who had established a commercially independent scientific organization “Foundation for technical creators”. During 2002-2007

Mr. Ryazantsev served for the state-owned Central Research and Technology Institute of Russia as Director of the Investment Projects and Advanced Technologies Department. Since 2007 Yan is the Investment Director of the Russian Venture Company – the new vehicle of the Russian Federation aiming to boost national venture capital market. Yan is a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.

*** Russian Venture Company is a $1.25 billion fund of funds established by the Russian Government to boost development of venture capital industry and technology entrepreneurship in the country.

Raising Your First Venture Capital in Russia

Tired of knocking on the doors of Silicon Valley venture capitalists? Desperate to finance your company?

Look at Enforta ($40 mln. investment led by Bessemer), Ozon ($18 mln. from Index Ventures and Cisco), and Badoo ($30.3 mln. from Russian financial group Finam to expand to Russia)! All these companies have received financing back in their home country.

Read more Raising Your First Venture Capital in Russia

Russia's Venture Capital Boom

"The Russian market is going to get hot," promises Ashish Patel, the managing director for Intel Capital in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Tech startups in the Federation are coming of age and starting to attract serious VC funding from the U.S. and Europe.

When Guiseppe Zocco, a founding partner in Index Ventures, a Geneva-based venture capital firm, entered the May 24 board meeting of Ozon, an online e-commerce startup, he felt as if he could have been anywhere in Europe.

The chief executive officer was Swiss, the auditors British, and the lawyers American.

Russian billionaire behind worldwide trade in oil

THE ownership of the heavy fuel oil fouling the beaches of northwest Spain can be traced back to Mikhail Fridman, one of the so-called Russian “oligarchs” and the man at the helm of Alfa Group, a private conglomerate with interests in oil exploration, commodities trading, banking, telecommunications, food, vodka and supermarkets.

One of Alfa Group’s many tentacles is Crown Resources, an oil-trading business set up by Alfa in Gibraltar in 1996. It was Crown that chartered the Prestige, a vessel that had previously been used as a floating storage tank, to hold deliveries of fuel from inland Russian refineries.

Read more Russian billionaire behind worldwide trade in oil


Source:Carl Mortished, International Business Editor

Comrade, can you spare a dime…or even $ 5,000?

One of Russia`s harshest critics, Republican presidential candidate John McCain, has been left with egg on his face after the Russian mission to the UN received a circular asking them to sponsor his campaign. McCain`s office says it was a computer-generated error.

Read more Comrade, can you spare a dime…or even $ 5,000?


Source: russia today

Russia and the World in the 21st Century

The end of the Cold War marked the end of a longer stage in global development, which lasted for 400 to 500 years and when the world was dominated by European civilization.

This domination was consistently led by the historical West. Now competition is becoming truly global and acquiring a civilizational dimension.

Read more Russia and the World in the 21st Century


Source: Sergei Lavrov

Oleg Deripaska

January 2, 1968 (1968-01-02) (age 40)

Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia

Residence Moscow, Russia.
Alma mater Moscow State University, Plekhanov Russian.
Academy of Economics.
Occupation Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Basic Element Company.

Net worth ▲US$28.6 billion (2008)

Spouse(s) Polina
Website http://www.basicelement/