En+/Polymetal: end of the line for “the Caviar Express”
The London Stock Exchange last week suspended trading in 27 companies with strong links to Russia, including EN+, the aluminium giant founded by the sanctioned oligarch Oleg Deripaska. That didn’t shake the loyalty of chairman Greg Barker, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. The Tory peer stated he wouldn’t “shirk responsibility” by resigning, “whatever the optics”, because of his obligation to the company’s employees. A few days’ reflection – or perhaps calls to remove “Lord Lucre”, who earned $4m per year from EN+, from the House of Lords – prompted a rethink. But it may not be a “clean departure” so much as “a soft-shoe shuffle”.
EN+ may spin off a chunk of its non-Russian operations. “Barker, it seems, could re-emerge as head of the carved-out operation.”
In a terse statement this week, Ian Cockerill, the British chairman of the Russian gold and silver miner Polymetal, and five other directors, also quit. “The continuing clatter of well-shod feet exiting boardrooms bears some investigation,” said Robert Lea in The Times. When exactly did these directors begin to question their dubious dividends? Was it the sight of carnage in Ukraine? “Or did they really need a proper monstering in the weekend press to make up their minds?”
Some still in board posts, such as former London Stock Exchange boss Xavier Rolet, who chairs the Russian fertiliser giant PhosAgro, complain about the “logic of punishing LSE-listed companies for the failure of diplomacy”, said Helen Thomas in the FT. But “it is fanciful to suggest there is a sustainable middle ground”. For decades, Russian companies listing in London have paid to gain “the respectability of the British establishment”. That “Caviar Express” has now rightfully ground to a halt. Call it “wartime reality”.