

Ask HN: Who are Russian Investors? - bhavin

While reading article about Plastic Logic's 700m investment, I noticed another major investment by 'Russian investors'. There seems to be a gigantic amount of investments by Russian investors in last few years (not only in tech like facebook, zynga but also in real estate etc.. google for more).<p>You don't hear so much about investment from investors from other countries (say Chinese/German/French investors). Does anybody know whose money is referred to as when we hear the term Russian investors? and more specifically, how they have this much free cash to invest (given Russia isn't obscenely rich)?
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curt
There is huge oil and mineral wealth in Russia. After the fall of communism,
the few well connected players bought up everything at ridiculously cheap
prices

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olegious
"You don't hear much about investments from China"?! What about the Chinese
sovereign wealth fund (SWF) that invested in some of our banks during the
crisis (along with other major investments)? What about the Gulf State SWFs
that did the same?

Russia's problem is it there are plenty of obscenely rich individuals (that's
why Moscow is consistently ranked as one of the most expensive cities in the
world) and no middle class- its oil money powers its own SWF. Many of the rich
made their money in oil and other commodities, others are the result of the
more recent consumer spending boom, many used their government positions or
contacts, the list goes on and on...

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NonEUCitizen
"how they have this much free cash" -- Russia has hydrocarbons; e.g. look up
Gazprom.

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wallflower
Oligarchs and their preferred investment vehicles

