Richard Deitz didn't realize how provocative his new firm's name would be when he set it up in Moscow after the crisis. VR Group, the snipers say, stands for "vozrozhdenie or vozkrezenie Renaissance" - Russian for Renaissance revival or resurrected. Others claim it means virtual Renaissance.
Why the joke?
Deitz and the team at VR are the core of Russian broker Renaissance's fixed-income team. Deitz himself was one of the four founders of Renaissance, along with Boris Jordan, now of MFK Renaissance, Stephen Jennings, president and CEO of Renaissance Capital and Leonid Rozhetskin, CEO of his own corporate finance boutique LV Finance.
Deitz, who says he came up with the name Renaissance in the first place, reckons VR doesn't really stand for anything, though in hindsight value recovery seems appropriate.
VR Group is a debt recovery and trading boutique. It helps the holders of illiquid, arcane or defaulted paper get back at least some of their initial investment. The bank's headquarters were its first deal.
They are situated in prime office space overlooking the river on Kosmodamianskaya Naberezhnaya and were once occupied by Bankers Trust.
BT pulled out of Russia when the crisis hit and the office was acquired by Deutsche bank. Deitz picked up the lease, the computers and the furniture for a song. He also bought some of BT's financial assets when Deutsche ordered its new buy to ditch them.
Debt collection in Russia is, of course, unconventional. Generally the firm will only tackle debt where there is a definite legal claim that can be used to start the negotiating process.
"Most of the debt that we deal with is not debt that people won't pay, it's debt they can't pay," says Deitz. But this does not mean that VR uses the courts to force payment. "It is more a question of how difficult we can make the issuer's life," explains Deitz.Simon Brady