The shares have an average rate of return of 14.72 percent, and currently comprise 1.7 percent of the fund's portfolio.
"The Lazard fund has become the largest portfolio investor in Lukoil in America and Europe. They are looking for greater marginal investment possibilities whose value rises faster than global oil prices, so if the oil price rises by ten percent, these shares rise by 15-20 percent. These include oil companies in emerging markets, so this explains Lazard's recent activity," market strategist Maksim Shein of the Russian brokerage BKS told Izvestiya.
Lukoil is Russia's largest privately-owned company, accounting for 16.4 percent of Russia's total oil production and 15.7 of refining. The company is also involved in oil and gas prospecting and production projects in 12 other countries.
According to the agency's data from 2015, apart from Lukoil the fund purchased shares in a range of Russian companies: retailer Magnit, mobile carriers Megafon and Mobile TeleSystems, and Sberbank, Russia's leading bank, which holds almost one third of all Russian banking sector assets.
"Some people misperceive Russia as the Wild West," Lazard's Managing Director and portfolio manager Rohit Chopra told Bloomberg.
"This is not a rosy environment by any means, but you have an independent central bank focused on markets, Russian reserves are still quite healthy, and employment has remained steady. We see a mispricing here, but I don't think that one can just take a broad view and say, buy all Russian equities," Chopra said.
