IT’S MID-AUGUST in Moscow and the city is going to hell. Forest and bog fires have shrouded the city in acrid smoke. Visibility is reduced to a hundred yards. Choking smog even permeates the underground rail system, infusing clothes and hair with the stench of toxic bonfire.
Forty-eight floors up at Naberezhnaya Tower Block C in northwestern Moscow, however, the view, in corporate terms at least, is almost starkly clear. These halls are owned by Renaissance Capital (RenCap), Russia’s leading investment bank – a company founded just 15 years ago yet already boasting assets and alliances that span the globe, from Hong Kong and Mumbai to eastern Siberia and sub-Saharan Africa.
RenCap specializes by entrenching itself into fast-growing, spectacularly high-margin sovereigns described as emerging or frontier nations. It rapidly develops contacts, embraces local business norms and becomes firm friends with politicians, legislators and business chiefs.
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