Banks give the elbow to oligarchs

Two leading Russian investment banks, Troika Dialog and Trust Investment Bank, have both completed management buy-outs.

Both are designed to cut loose oligarch shareholders ” it is undesirable to have links with them since Yukos was broken up.

For Trust Investment Bank, its MBO had a simple objective ” distance the bank from Menatep, its former owner and the current target of a Kremlin legal assault.

Menatep, whose principal shareholders are the jailed Mikhail Khordorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, previously owned 99.3%