The agency ascribes telecommunication corporate success to great capital consumption in that industry, which forces involved companies to reduce borrowed funds and whip up the costs of their own business.
The latest S&P probe concerned sixty companies. Fifty of them lead the industry for capitalisation and stock liquidity. Their capitalisation is making a lump US$816 billion-95 per cent of the entire Russian stock market capital. The other ten involved companies have their stock on MICEX 1st and 2nd level quotation lists. These facts and figures came from Yulia Kochetygova, S&P corporate management rating service director, as she was making a public introduction of the Standard & Poor's paper on the check.
The study focused on information offer analyses from overseas investors' viewpoint, and presented 89 items. The probe finished, August 13, and so regarded as open information only such as was published before that day, said Ms. Kochetygova.
Information transparency standards have somewhat improved since last year, though no sizeable shifts were made-the companies that had proved best are remaining the best, and those who brought the rear are staying so, she remarked.
The most transparent companies-Rostelecom, Wimm Bill Dunne and MTS-have their information openness standards close to the world's best. The worst-Krasny Oktyabr and Krasnoyarskenergo-have made only token progress to offer scanty information, as before, the S&P says in its paper.
As for absolute achievements, the Lenenergo, AvtoVAZ, GAZ, VolgaTelecom, Northeast Telecom, Mosenergo, Gasprom, Baltika and Savings Bank are certainly the best. The S&P tracks down their success to corporate eagerness to make stock andliabilities more attractive to overseas capital investors. At the same time, transparency has dwindled in the Yukos, Tatneft and Irkutskenergo.
The agency highlights a high level of property concentration in the fifty mammoths under study. Their blocking shares or control blocks account for 57 per cent of their lump market capital. With that, a mere 32 out of the total fifty are offering information about their biggest stockholders, irrespective of category. Private property on which no information was available made a lump $114 billion, as of August 13. Totally unknown holders possess property to more than 100 billion dollars out of the entire amount of Russian-based private property, pointed out Yulia Kochetygova.
Russian corporate managerial standards stay below global, and it is hard to improve them, what with legal regulation and administering the law that leave ample room for progress, stress Standard & Poor's experts.
If Russia improves its corporate managerial practice, it will enhance public confidence that is a sine qua non to attract capital into this country and so help it implement its vast human and natural resource potential, Yulia Kochetygova emphatically added.
