Singapore Exchange will have a team of top executives in Moscow on Wednesday in a bid to lure Russian companies' IPOs away from its Hong Kong rival.
More than 100 large and midsize Russian companies are expected to take part in a one-day seminar with Singapore bourse managers including Simon Lim, its listings director, and Ong Chong-Jin, head of marketing and business development of listings.
The meeting comes on the back of similar advances to Russia from larger rival Hong Kong, which hopes to follow its successful pursuit of aluminum giant United Company RusAl with more Russian listings.
"The Asian capital markets are very attractive for Russia today. We believe the [Singapore] seminar will open new opportunities for the development of Russian business," Giedrius Pukas, managing partner of seminar host Quadro Capital Partners, said Tuesday.
Heavyweights from Morgan Stanley's Singapore division, Malaysia's Hong Leong Bank and the RTS stock exchange will also attend the seminar.
The initial public listing market was firmly shut to Russian companies in 2009 as investors licked their wounds from the economic crisis. But as the global economy has started recovering, the appetite for risk has grown.
Russian companies are planning dozens of initial and secondary share offerings in 2010 and many have their eye on Hong Kong.
They are looking to Asian markets as bourses there are trying to make the listing process as smooth as possible to get an edge on their Western rivals, as seen with RusAl's IPO in Hong Kong in January.
RusAl was the first non-Asian firm to list in Hong Kong, raising $2.2 billion in its IPO.
The location suited the group's reliance on Chinese demand for aluminum and allayed fears that its CEO Oleg Deripaska would face corporate governance issues in London.
SGX has been developing and introducing new products in a bid to narrow the gap with its Hong Kong rival, and Qadro Capital's Pukas, former managing director of alternative asset management at Russian broker Troika Dialog, said he hoped to facilitate a path to the Russian market for Singapore.
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