Foreign Firms Top List of Russia's Leading Money Managers, Says Institutional Investor

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Sep 22, 2011) - The two largest fund managers in Moscow are foreign-controlled firms, reflecting growing international interest in investing in Russia, according to Institutional Investor magazine.

The Complete survey results can be found at www.institutionalinvestor.com.

Prosperity Capital Management, a London-based outfit that focuses exclusively on investments in Russia and the former Soviet Union, manages $4.85 billion in Russian assets, putting it at the top of the Russia 20, II's new exclusive ranking of the country's leading fund managers.

Since the financial crisis jolted Russian markets in 2008-09, Prosperity, which invests mainly for European family offices and Scandinavian institutions, has attracted money from four sovereign wealth funds, including Norway's deep-pocketed Government Pension Fund Global, and two U.S. pension funds, says Mattias Westman, the firm's founding partner. "A lot of investors are willing to have a real look at Russia now rather than dismissing it out of hand," Westman says.

TKB BNP Paribas Investment Partners, a joint venture between the French bank and TransCreditBank, a subsidiary of Russia's state-owned VTB Bank, ranks second in the Russia 20 with $4.09 billion in assets. By contrast, Russian-owned fund managers have lagged as the volatility of the local stock market in recent years has kept many private investors out of the market. UralSib Asset Management ranks third on the list, with $4.01 billion in assets, followed by Troika Dialog Asset Management ($3.33 billion) and Promsvyazbank ($2.41 billion), Russia's tenth-largest bank, which is one quarter-owned by Germany's Commerzbank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The Complete survey results can be found at www.institutionalinvestor.com.

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