VTB Capital

There are 3 russian i-banks, but not really. Sberbank has absolutely no say outside of Russia (though they bought Troika, who actually have some US/Ldn exposure), and RenCap is slowly and surely getting cannibalized at home not only the other 2 Russian firms, but by GS and DB. And theres VTBCap. Their y/y growth is quite impressive. Moscow office already has over 1200people, London has ~350 now from around 50 when they started only 3 years ago. Satellites are across CIS region, Vienna, HK, S'pore, and NYC just opened. Most of the senior guys are from DB - i.e., the investment banking arm of VTB at its initiation basically poached a bunch of DB and JPM guys.

Huge player in FX (RUB crosses obviously) and anything to do with Russian syndicate (ECM/DCM). For comparison, the 2nd largest player in RUB is RenCap.. the volume of cross-RUB currency VTB does in a day is typically 10-20x what RenCap would do. As for new issues, theyre 1st on league tables for DCM and 2nd in ECM for IPOs in Russia. Basically, any nationalized Russian firm going private is going to have VTBC attached to the deal either as Lead or Co-.

In Banking, huge in NatRes, but substantial for other M&A activity recently going on in Russia. For S&T.. well suffice to say if a non-Russian PM or HF will be pitched a GazProm, Vimpelcom, what have you...its gonna be a VTB sales guy pitching the firm to you. Trading much the same.. they also have the huge B/S to back up their traders so you know theyre packing size.

I would be very weary of comparing anything to a French bank as those suckers are filled to the brim with PIIGS debt. CIS/CEE region banks are typically a lot leaner. Expansion is indeed the next step for the firm, though im curious as to what region it will view as 'safer' to enter assuming this current environment which isnt too appealing for investment firms.