Morgan Stanley Enabled Rosneft as No. 1 Until Crimea Grab - Bloomberg

Morgan Stanley Enabled Rosneft as No. 1 Until Crimea Grab - Bloomberg:



"Long before the Ukraine crisis ruptured U.S.-Russian relations, Vladimir Putin and his right-hand man, Igor Sechin, hosted then-Morgan Stanley (MS) Chief Executive Officer John Mack at an exclusive reception at Putin’s Novo-Ogaryovo estate outside Moscow.



According to the Kremlin, Putin thanked Mack and a few other foreign bankers at the October 2006 gathering for leading the $10 billion initial public offering of OAO Rosneft, the state-controlled oil giant headed by Sechin. He then chatted with the bankers for an hour in a formal meeting room.



Putin and Sechin have a lot more to thank Morgan Stanley for. The American investment bank helped transform state-owned Rosneft from a business the Russian government failed to sell three times in 1998 into the world’s biggest publicly traded oil producer by output. Morgan Stanley played a key role in saving it from being acquired, and Rosneft hired three consecutive chief financial officers from the bank. In 2013, Putin approved Mack’s appointment to Rosneft’s board."



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