For Russia's investment banks, the financial crisis was a story of survivals, rescues and resurrections. The bailout of KIT Finance by Gazprom pension fund manager Lider Asset Management, and later Russian Railways, was the harbinger of the crisis in Russia. Sharp falls in stock market values hit any investment banks or brokerages that had relied on margin lending, with shares as collateral, to fund themselves or their clients.
The established market leaders remain Renaissance Capital, in which cash-rich Mikhail Prokhorov took a 50% stake at the height of the crisis, and Troika Dialog, which sold a 33% stake to South Africa's highly liquid Standard Bank. State-owned VTB Capital has also burst onto the scene, with its status as the investment banking arm of Russia's influential second-largest bank helping to win mandates for the Rusal initial public offering (IPO) of January 2010 and the sovereign bond in April.
