Four weeks after the US crippled Oleg Deripaska’s London-listed holding company EN+ with sanctions, it is hard to find anyone in the City who recalls being close to him or his business. Privately, they cite rivals who were more entwined, or others who endorsed him and they innocently trusted.
Board members have resigned, banks and legal advisers retreated and public relations companies made their excuses in the face of the US legal onslaught. The City’s decade-long romance with Russian finance has cooled sharply at the sight of conflict. “Putin is there forever, so I don’t see how the economics now work,” says one EN+ adviser.
The prominent exception, honourable in its way, is Baron Barker of Battle. The Russophile chairman of EN+ is staying in his job as others melt away, hoping to salvage something for the minority investors. Their stakes in EN+ plunged from its listing in November as the “adverse media speculation” about Mr Deripaska sniffily dismissed in its prospectus came true.