Russia goes large

The Russian equities market has been growing at a staggering pace in recent years, and was one of the five best-performing markets in 2005. In tandem with this growth, there has been a surge in equity-linked structured products. Shamillia Sivathambu examines the trends

"Russian equities have been growing at a rate of between 40% and 50% over the past five years," says Oleg Jelezko, Moscow-based managing director of equity finance and structured products at Renaissance Capital, the largest structured products issuer in Russia. There are many things playing in Russia's favour and the outlook for 2006 looks even more promising, he adds.

Gazprom, Russia's largest company and the biggest natural gas extractor in the world, made its debut on both the Russian Trading