Russia Roundup: Coca Cola to Acquire Siberian Juice Company

Russian stocks edged up this week along with world oil prices, the benchmark RTS index gaining more than 4% after a rough August. Underlying news was also upbeat as the economy cruises toward a four-plus percent expansion for 2010

(To read Lisa LaMotta's article about the antibiotic ceftaroline, click here.)

Coca-Cola (KO) announced it would acquire a Siberia-based juice company at a reported price of around $450 million, part of a strategy to invest billions more in Russia over the next few years. Gas giant Gazprom beat analysts’ estimates with its (very late) first quarter 2010 earnings report, racking up a whopping $10.6 billion in profit.

(To see Justin Sharon's piece on Burger King, click here.)

More important as a Russian bellwether was a swing to first-half profit for Rusal, the world’s biggest aluminum producer. The company lost $868 million in the first half of 2009, and the Russian state had to send billions in life support to save ruling oligarch Oleg Deripaska from bankruptcy. This year Rusal earned $1.27 billion from January through June. Its shares have climbed 20% from mid-June lows, though they are still far underwater for investors in the company’s January 2010 IPO.

(To view Jeff Harding's position on what market indicators are saying, click here.)

Ruble bond markets, which hit a record last year for corporate issuance, showed signs of life on the public-sector side as the city of St. Petersburg announced its first debt issue in five years. Infrastructure needs in vast, crumbling Russia are infinite, so this could be the beginning of a regional borrowing boomlet. In the Russia-is-still-Russia category, national airline Aeroflot filed suit against the city of Moscow for lost business when overzealous repairs on the road to Sheremetyevo Airport made it practically impassable for five days in June. Chaos is never far below the veneer of national order. And readers will be pleased to learn that Moscow’s atomic energy ministry is emerging as a force on the global nuclear power market.

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