Media Room
10 Oct 2018
Annual Moscow Exchange Forum in partnership with BCS Global Markets wraps up in New York

Officials, investors and strategists gathered at the largest annual forum in the US to discuss investment and trading opportunities on Moscow Exchange

US institutional investors met 1-1 with Russian corporates to discuss companies’ investment cases

New York, 5th October 2018 – More than 300 U.S. investors and members of the business community gathered for the Moscow Exchange Forum: New York Session earlier this week.  The forum was held this year in partnership with BCS Global Markets, the largest independent securities broker on Moscow Exchange. The New York edition of the forum this year focused on Russia’s equity and debt markets and updated the international and US investment community on Russia’s market infrastructure.

Participants listened to four panel sessions during the day, covering topics including: oil and gas of the future, the Russian economy, investing and trading on Moscow Exchange and fintech and banks of the future. Speakers were drawn from industry and government in Russia and the US including the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Sergey Shvetsov and Russia’s Deputy Minister of Finance Vladimir Kolychev.

Leading experts on the Russian economy such as Chairman of the Moscow Exchange Supervisory Board Oleg Viyuginshared the stage with senior executives and Board members from Russian corporates including Novatek, Yandex and QIWI. Other speakers included world-renowned experts on energy and senior emerging markets fund managers.

On the second day of the forum, executives from 15 leading Russian corporates held one-on-one meetings with U.S. institutional investors to give them an insight into sectors and companies where investment opportunities lie.

Alexander Afanasiev, CEO, Moscow Exchange said: Despite all the geopolitical noise, U.S. investors continue to see significant opportunities on the Russian market and are investing in equities, bonds and other asset classes via Moscow Exchange. The strong response to this year’s Moscow Exchange Forum: New York Session was just one more testament to the high level of interest in the Russian market from US investors.

Roman Lokhov, CEO, BCS Global Markets commented: Russia is a much-discussed topic at the moment, and it’s important to have conversations with investors and officials alike, and this forum provided a great opportunity to do just that. The US is also an important market for BCS strategically, given that many of our clients are based in the US.

We have a close partnership with MOEX and are pleased to have brought policymakers, market participants, brokers and investment banks together to discuss opportunities to invest and trade in Russia. It is sometimes difficult for the international investment community to assess which sectors and companies to look at within the emerging markets and Russia particularly. At BCS, a large part of our offering is to educate investors on the Russian context and investment opportunities – thus we were thrilled to be involved.