Dimon, Pandit, Blankfein, Ackermann Join Kremlin Advisory Board
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon
Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
James "Jamie" Dimon, chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co.
James "Jamie" Dimon, chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit
Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
Vikram Pandit, chief executive officer of Citigroup Inc.
Vikram Pandit, chief executive officer of Citigroup Inc. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
Wall Street bankers including JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s Jamie Dimon, Citigroup Inc. (C)’s Vikram Pandit and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)’s Lloyd Blankfein are advising the Kremlin on how to turn Moscow into a global financial center.
President Dmitry Medvedev named 27 people to a working group for the project that also includes Bank of America Corp. (BAC)’s Brian T. Moynihan, Morgan Stanley (MS)’s John Mack, Deutsche Bank AG (DBK)’s Josef Ackermann and Blackstone Group’s Stephen Schwarzman, according to a member of the board who declined to be identified and information posted on the Kremlin’s website.
Russia is seeking to lessen its dependence on natural resources by promoting “innovative” technologies, selling state assets and creating a “special sovereign” fund to attract foreign capital, Medvedev said in an interview on Jan 26. Creating the legal and physical infrastructure needed to lure financial flows to the Russian capital is part of that drive. Moscow ranked 68th of 75 cities in the Global Financial Centers Index commissioned by the City of London in 2009.
“We believe it is very important to participate in the committees advising President Medvedev on how to transform Moscow into a financial center,” said Dimitri Agishev, a Deutsche Bank spokesman, in an e-mailed statement. Russia continues to be a key market with ample opportunities.”
Nomura, Bank Leumi
All but eight of the people Medvedev named to the group are foreigners, including Timothy Flynn, Dennis Nally and James Turley, the heads of accounting firms KPMG LLP, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Ernst & Young LLP, respectively.
The Russians include Alexander Voloshin, who was chief of the Kremlin staff under the late President Boris Yeltsin and his successor Vladimir Putin. Medvedev appointed Voloshin head of the government working group on the financial center last July.
German Gref and Andrei Kostin, who run Russia’s two biggest banks, OAO Sberbank and VTB Group, are on the board, as are billionaire lawmaker Suleiman Kerimov and Troika Dialog’s Ruben Vardanian.
Galia Maor of Israel’s Bank Leumi and OAO Sberbank’s Bella Zlatkis are the only women in the group, while Nomura Holdings Inc.’s Kenichi Watanabe is the only Asian.
Andrey Sayko, a spokesman for Micex, Russia’s largest stock exchange, said the bourse’s President Ruben Aganbegyan had been appointed to the panel. Micex shareholders agreed in February to buy a controlling stake in the rival RTS, merging the Moscow- based exchanges.
“Ruben is taking part,” Sayko said by phone in Moscow. “The merger of the RTS and Micex is a part of the bigger picture of making Moscow a financial center.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Corcoran at Jcorcoran13@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gavin Serkin at gserkin@bloomberg.net
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