I, for one, don’t feel sorry for Zyuzin. And I don’t agree with the view that Mechel shareholders should sue Putin. Mechel’s main shareholder is Zyuzin himself. All this time, he’s been sitting pretty. Minority shareholders, on the other hand, haven’t seen any of that prosperity. Even though Mechel increased its dividend payouts, in 2007 the yield was 2.7% annually. Zyuzin himself used transfer pricing to siphon money out of his company and from the other shareholders. And he made billions from it. As usual, there is only one complaint about Putin. And it is a very serious one: *What about everyone else? *I watched the live broadcast of that meeting yesterday. They were all there. And all the steel magnates operate this way. And not just the steel magnates. Bogdanov from Surgutneftegaz was sitting directly opposite VVP (Vladimir Putin’s initials in Russian). Bogdanov gives me a return of 1.6% annually. At record oil prices. Meanwhile, Gunvor is getting rich. But that doesn’t interest Putin.
People