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This strikes me as a prelude to seizure of foreign-owned assets. In that light, locking trades seems obvious.

woodruffw 5y ago
Maybe, but I think that's pretty unlikely at this juncture: not only are there not a lot of assets they could seize punitively (I assume the Kremlin is not looking to make enemies out of hitherto neutral countries like India), but any seizure would take Russia's financial status from "pariah, but quantifiably risky" to "unquantifiably risky."
- eropple 5y ago
  Invading neighbors and rattling your nuclear saber in a world with MAD probably ought to take you to "unquantifiably risky" already.
gitfan86 5y ago
Right, if France takes an oligarch's house and boat in Nice, why not take a French billionaire's assets in Russia and give them to that Oligarch? Stock in a gas company may not make up for the loss of a house and yacht but it is something.
- eropple 5y ago
  I suspect it's more of a closed-economy, fortress-Russia mindset we'll see, not compensating some oligarchs.
- fmajid 5y ago
  I doubt there are many French billionaires with personal assets in Russia. Their companies may have some capital in the form of Louis Vuitton shops in Moscow, but that is peanuts in the grand scheme of things. The only really valuable assets are shares in resource extraction companies since that's essentially what Russia's economy is based upon.
forum_ghost 5y ago
I believe you are absolutely correct. BP's 25 billion stake in Rosneft will most likely be nationalized. https://www.forbes.com/sites/masonbissada/2022/02/27/bp-drops-nearly-20-stake-in-russian-owned-oil-firm-after-invasion-of-ukraine https://www.forbes.com/sites/masonbissada/2022/02/27/bp-drop... There are probably others I don't know about, as Russia received 30 billion in FDI just in 2019 alone. I presume all foreign Russian sovereign bond holders are going to be wiped out also? I don't know what else can one expect after freezing central bank reserves to the tune of half a trillion dollars. Hopefully not a nuclear war.

Maybe, but I think that's pretty unlikely at this juncture: not only are there not a lot of assets they could seize punitively (I assume the Kremlin is not looking to make enemies out of hitherto neutral countries like India), but any seizure would take Russia's financial status from "pariah, but quantifiably risky" to "unquantifiably risky."

eropple 5y ago
Invading neighbors and rattling your nuclear saber in a world with MAD probably ought to take you to "unquantifiably risky" already.

gitfan86 5y ago

Right, if France takes an oligarch's house and boat in Nice, why not take a French billionaire's assets in Russia and give them to that Oligarch? Stock in a gas company may not make up for the loss of a house and yacht but it is something.

eropple 5y ago
I suspect it's more of a closed-economy, fortress-Russia mindset we'll see, not compensating some oligarchs.
fmajid 5y ago
I doubt there are many French billionaires with personal assets in Russia. Their companies may have some capital in the form of Louis Vuitton shops in Moscow, but that is peanuts in the grand scheme of things. The only really valuable assets are shares in resource extraction companies since that's essentially what Russia's economy is based upon.

forum_ghost 5y ago

I believe you are absolutely correct. BP's 25 billion stake in Rosneft will most likely be nationalized. https://www.forbes.com/sites/masonbissada/2022/02/27/bp-drops-nearly-20-stake-in-russian-owned-oil-firm-after-invasion-of-ukraine https://www.forbes.com/sites/masonbissada/2022/02/27/bp-drop... There are probably others I don't know about, as Russia received 30 billion in FDI just in 2019 alone. I presume all foreign Russian sovereign bond holders are going to be wiped out also? I don't know what else can one expect after freezing central bank reserves to the tune of half a trillion dollars. Hopefully not a nuclear war.