Company News

RBC Rating agency posted its rating “Russia’s Largest Brokers in 9M 2009” with Finam heading the list. According to the agency, the company’s trading volumes on the Russian equity market in the first nine months 2009 amounted to USD 96.99 bn, up USD 17 bn compared to the closest rival. According to RBC estimates, in January-September Finam accounted for 17.61% of aggregate turnover on Russian stock exchanges.

The Russian Managers Association and Kommersant Publishing House presented the tenth annual rating of the Top 1,000 Russian managers. “Top Manager Rating 2009” named Finam Chairman of the Board Victor Remsha among the best. For the record, he has been lauded as one of the best Russian top managers for several years already – the first time he was included in the rating was in 2004. The guiding principle in the Top 1,000 Russian Managers contest is “the best pick the best”. Manager work is assessed not by objective operating indicators of their company (output, revenue, etc.), as in this case we would have a ranking of companies rather than their leaders. The professional reputation of a manager, determined by expert poll, is assessed.

Finam Investment Holding presented its clients a new trading platform for operations on international stock markets - ROX®. It provides direct access to deposits on all leading stock exchanges of Europe, the USA, Canada and Mexico making it possible to perform from one platform operations with stock market instruments and derivatives on the most liquid international stock exchanges.

ROX® trading platform opens direct access to 19 largest international stock exchanges. In particular, it enables investors to execute operations with shares and ETF on NYSE, NASDAQ, London Stock Exchange, Toronto Stock Exchange, Deutsche Bцrse trading floors, etc. Operations can also be performed on rather exotic trading floors for Russian investors, such as Mexican Bolsa Mexicana de Valores or Norwegian Oslo Stock Exchange. In addition, at present, Finam clients can trade on stock exchanges with a focus on derivatives, such as CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange), CME/CBOT (Chicago Mercantile Exchange/Chicago Board of Trade), Eurex, to name but a few.

In addition to an opportunity to trade on leading stock exchanges, ROX® has a number of other advantages. For instance, its users can engage in margin trading on NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX. What’s more, tariffs are quite low for international stock exchanges – USD 2.75 per trade and the minimum amount to open an account is USD 10,000. In addition, full support in the Russian language is available to traders using ROX®. Finally, this is the first time that a platform is presented in Russia which makes it possible to apply algorithmic trading (trading robots) on US stock exchanges.

National Rating Agency presented ranking of investment companies in the first quarter 2009. Based on results of the research, Finam ranked among Top 3 companies in terms of total turnover, which amounted to RUB 1,358.25 bn. In addition, Finam ranked second in terms of trading volumes and asset value, and also ranked among Top 3 largest investment companies in terms of trading volumes.

RBC.Rating, agency in cooperation with the banks-rate.ru project, has prepared a rating of the largest Russian banks in 1H 2009. Based on the results of the research, Finam Investment bank continued to boost its positions in the domestic banking sector. Specifically, it ranked 163rd in terms of liquid assets, and climbed 38 notches in the list since last year in terms of this criterion. In addition, the bank ranks among the Top-500 largest banking organizations in terms of net assets, credit and deposit portfolio. In addition, an upbeat trend was reported in the corporate segment, in which Finam Bank jumped 34 notches at once.

RBC.Rating agency presented the survey “The Largest Russian Brokers in 1H 2009”. Finam ranked among leading investment companies in terms of trading volumes. In January-June, it accounted for 17.01% of total turnover, which corresponds to USD 52.9 bn.

The Family Budget magazine held the ceremony to give the Second Annual Social Award of Financial Pearl of Russia-2008 (The Best Financial Services for Population/The Best Financial Retail). The magazine staff tallied the results of voting of their readers, visitors of the 7budget.ru website and members of the expert council. Finam.ru was recognized the leader of the Financial Pearl award for the second time. And again in the category Best Website (the most client-friendly website). “The victory in the contest in this challenging period is something of a quality label and underscores our successful operations”, organizers of “Financial Pearl of Russia” point out. “Competition in the financial website segment is becoming fiercer, as old projects develop and new ones emerge on a regular basis. However, we are still the best and will make every effort to retain this status in the future”, said editor-in-chief of Finam.ru information group Sergey Kudryashov.

Thomson Reuters agency presented its annual rating “Focus Russia Survey 2009”. This was the third time the survey was held. It is based on voting results of international financial market participants held in spring 2009. The results and poll methodology were audited by independent experts of Deloitte.

For the first time since the rating was established, Finam was named among the Top 25 leading brokers from the viewpoint of global investors and outpaced a number of well-known international and Russian investment banks. This achievement can be regarded as an appraisal of development efficiency of Russian broker No.1 in a relatively new segment for the company – servicing international institutional investors. In addition, Finam analysts were included in Thomson Reuters rating. Vladimir Sergievsky was named among the best strategists and Konstantin Romanov ranked among leading banking experts.

On June 18, 2009 an annual Financial Elite of Russia award ceremony was conducted in Moscow. Finam Investment Company won the award “Investment Company on the Stock Market” prize.

This award reflects the opinions of Russian leading economists and finance professionals, representatives from media companies, and, given its name, it is designed to recognize the best of the best and define the truly financial elite of the country. The reason for the award was Finam’s achievements in the investment business, as underscored by its leading market positions in terms of active clients, exchange turnover and the broadest regional network.

For the record, this was not the first time that Finam received high expert reviews and public recognition, since last year the company also won the “Investment Company of the Year” award as part of the “Financial Elite of the Year” contest. The company’s performance was also duly appreciated by a number of other awards in prestigious contests, e.g. this year the company won recognition in the Elite of the Stock Market – 2008 national contest in the category “Company Providing Services to Individual Investors”.

The Economic News Agency (ENA) again made a rating of the most dynamically and steadily growing companies and banks, and this time 2008 performance was analyzed. The survey was conducted with participation of experts from ENA, the Chamber of Trade and Industry of Russia, the Association of Russian Banks, the All-Russian Union of Insurers, the National Association of Participants of the Russian Stock Market, the Professional Institute for Placements and Circulation of Stock Instruments, and also directors and experts from leading media companies, market research centers, big commercial firms and public organizations. The main criterion was not absolute asset figures of banks, charter capitals or turnovers, but the pace of their expansion, the weight on the Russian market and development prospects.

Finam ranked among the ten most dynamically and steadily growing companies in the category “Finance, Investment and Venture Companies”. It should also be noted that the rating’s methodology suggests picking top ten players from one or another industry, with no places distributed between them.