Red Notice by Bill Bowder
Date finished 18 Apr 2021
Recommendation: 8/10
An incredible telling of greed and corruption in Russia on a massive scale, all the way to the top. Bower’s book reads like a thriller but the shocking fact is that it’s true. The bravery of the individuals in exposing this is admirable and it’s hard not to be moved by the resolve of Sergei Magnitsky and the ultimate price he paid; his life. What’s in this book needs to be known.
Notes
- Vast Russian privatizations post communism.
- Vouchers issued to citizens, bought up in exchanges and used to purchase shares of Russian companies at very low rates (how he starts to make money with his hedge fund).
- Many state companies valued way below comparative companies inside and outside Russia. Easily calculable value discrepancies based on assets alone, for example barrels of oil. Massive opportunity for those that could spot this.
- Prison yard attitude in Russia. Show no weakness more important than rationality. Especially for an oligarch.
- 1998 Russia goes into financial meltdown - his fund looses 90% from 1b to 100m.
- Quotes
- “Seventy years of communism had destroyed the work ethic of an entire nation. Millions of Russians had been sent to the gulags for showing the slightest hint of personal initiative. The Soviets severely penalized independent thinkers, so the natural self-preservation reaction was to do as little as possible and hope that nobody would notice you.”
- “The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they sleep at night.”
- “After Khodorkovsky was found guilty, most of Russia’s oligarchs went one by one to Putin and said, ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich, what can I do to make sure I won’t end up sitting in a cage?’ I wasn’t there, so I’m only speculating, but I imagine Putin’s response was something like this: ‘Fifty per cent.”
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