Rosneft Call-a-friend

How can you sell an initial public offering when institutional investors only want to buy 50% of the shares on offer at the high price you want for them? In the case of Rosneft’s $10.4bn floatation you send for Russia’s so-called «friends and family» to rally round. Look at where the demand for Rosneft’s stock came from, and where the shares ended up. The Russian oil company received $15bn of orders for stock at its $7.55 per share price. Of this, almost $10bn came from so-called strategic inve...