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Investors, including major asset managers, hedge funds and pensions plans, are seeing their loss on their Russia-linked assets widens in the wake of Russia’s invasion on Ukraine and an array of subsequent sanctions announced by the US and its allies.
At the end of 2021, investors held Russian assets worth around $170bn, according to a report by Financial Times.
The sanctions that followed Russia’s ‘special operation’ in Ukraine led to the suspension of Moscow’s equity markets. In addition, trading in several foreign-listed Russian companies has been halted.
Russia’s dollar debt is said to be trading at about 20 cents on the dollar and an MSCI index tracking London and New York-traded Russian stocks plummeted to over 95% this year.
Around 26 asset managers, including Amundi, UBS, BlackRock, BNP Paribas, Schroders, Pictet and Abrdn have frozen their funds with considerable exposure to Russia.
According to Moscow Exchange data, foreign holdings of Russian equities amounted to $86bn at the end of 2021.
The central bank data shows that foreign investors also held Russia’s dollar debt worth $20bn and $41bn of rouble-denominated sovereign bonds.
According to the report, Fidelity International last week marked down Russian securities linked to funds that were affected.
Prosperity Capital Management suspended investor redemptions and net asset value calculations after its Russian Prosperity fund plummeted 51% this year to February 24.
Prosperity is said to be one of the oldest and largest hedge fund investors in Russia with approximately $3bn in assets.
US public pension fund Calpers’s $478bn portfolio had about $900m of exposure to Russia.
The UK’s largest pension plan, The Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), had approximately 0.5% of the scheme’s £90bn portfolio linked to Russia.
