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Putin Government Moves To Take Control of Russia's largest space company Energia
schwit1 writes Vitaly Lopota, the president of Russia's largest space company Energia, was suspended Friday by the company's board of directors. From the article: "The move appears to be part of an effort by Russia's government to obtain majority control over Energia, of which it owns a 38-percent share. The directors elected Igor Komarov as its new chairman of the board. Komarov is chief of the Russian United Rocket and Space Corporation (URSC), the government-owned company tasked with consolidating Russia's sprawling space sector." The government is also conducting a criminal investigation of Lopota, which might be justified but appears to be a power play designed to both eliminate him from the game as well as make sure everyone else tows the line so that URSC can take complete control.
Anyone else here miss the 1980s USSR? Looks like Putin does ...
This sort of thing is why shares of russian companies trade at a huge discount compared to shares of western and asian companies.
... really... you "toe the line" not "tow the line" as the submitter writes.
Anybody still seriously doubt that Russia is a neo-Fascist country?
It's called nationalizing. Sometimes it's done in the best interest of the public of the nation. Such as USRA was a nationalizing of all private rail during WWI in the USA, only to be spun off again in the 1920's as private enterprises. In fact USRA was a nationalization of rail twice, once during WWI, and one in the 70's related to Conrail. See the first two entries at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
Administrative takeover of corporations by autoritative central state, with intimidation through abuse of executive power, is textbook fascism. Mussolini would be proud.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Consolidating a fragmented industry can be a good idea and has worked to a greater or lesser extent in the past. The problem is that the government is usually too far behind the curve to make the best decisions and a good example would be some of the nationalisations that happened in the UK.
However, in Russia, it is about redistributing the assets privatised in the early nineties. The privatisations were a "fire-sale" in which only a favoured few could take part, however subsequently, the shares traded on a secondary market and became assets belonging to pension funds and the like. Unfortunately, in the early nineties, when Putin and his backers (the so-called Siloviki) came to power, they discovered there was nothing new to privatise so they took some companies back such as Yukos. On the smaller scale, many companies found themselves forced with new directors who had relationships with the Siloviki.
Either way, by undermining corporate governance and the protection of property, the government has made it far more difficult for a normal financial infrastructure to exist.
See my journal, I write things there
Sure, the way Russians go about nationalizing companies is not very nice or even subtle. But I wish my government did the same. Services that people need in order to live - energy, water, medical - shouldn't be on the free market. All that stuff should be publicly owned and the goal shouldn't to be to make money but to provide critical services to the people for the cheapest amount possible.
In Soviet Russia, line tows you!
Nationalisation pays the previous owner. It's a compulsory purchase, not just seizing control.
What the Russians are doing is just theft, extralegal, unconstitutional, just as they did with all the energy companies which are the only thing propping up their economy, and media companies. The method is a variation on how organised crime takes over a business, but with the backing of the courts.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.