S&P GUINEA PIGS: Historically indifferent Russia starts to heed corporate governance rules.(Standard and Poor's Corp. to study Russian companies)

Pensions & Investments, November, 2000 by Feinberg, Phyllis

Russian companies have not been known for their adherence to good corporate governance standards. But the Russian debt crisis of 1998 gave corporate executives there a wakeup call. ``Russian managers considered these companies their private companies. They didn't understand they have to answer to shareholders,'' said Vadim Degtiarev, a Moscow-based portfolio manager for Brunswick Capital Management, London, which runs a $350 million portfolio of stocks of Russian companies.

``But after the crisis of 1998, they realized they couldn't borrow money like before,'' he added. ``Now some of the companies that had been bad at corporate governance -- such as many in the oil and gas industry, one of the biggest industries in Russia -- are being portrayed as symbols of the...

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