Emerging markets: Renaissance Capital rushes to broaden its horizons

Renaissance Capital’s ambition is to become the world’s pre-eminent emerging markets investment bank. The economic ties that link Asia, Africa and all the states of the former Soviet Union are a new focus. Can its clarity of purpose help RenCap usurp its global competitors? Elliot Wilson reports.

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.

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