Vedomosti, June 14, 2005

The overthrow of YUKOS, the measures of tax authorities, which are bullying business as Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying, and the deterioration of the investment climate prevented the Russian market from advancing last year. Russia accounted for 39 positions in the top 100 companies of Eastern Europe, down from 45 the previous year. However, the market diversification trend, which became noticeable last year, is still in place.

And still, Russian companies' ratings sustained significant changes. Sistema Corporation rushed to the 13th position at once, with its capitalization of $7.84bn, through the largest IPO on the Russian market, from which it gained $1.56bn. However, Poland's banking-sector leader PKO Bank outdid Sistema in November, when it raised $2.3bn through partial privatization. Its IPO became the largest in Eastern Europe, and PKO Bank was given its first FT rating, outpacing Sistema by almost $1bn.

With Sistema, the value of the technological sector on the Russian market soared, for the corporation, alongside Mobile TeleSystems and MGTS (Moscow City Telephone Network) listed separately on exchanges, owns such telecommunications assets as Comstar - United TeleSystems, MTU-Intel, and Sky Link, as well as Mikron and Kvant belonging to the Research Center Concern. RBC Information Systems also joined the list for the first time, and ranked last with its $364m. In April 2002, RBC held the first IPO in Russia, raising its capitalization to $83m.