Russia’s default in 1997 and the stock market devalued rapidly. Browder (founder of Hermitage investment fund) lost, by his estimate, 90% of his money during this time that he had invested in Russia. More onerous, was the wholesale “stealing” by the Russian oligarchs.
Rather than put up with this, Browder met with company employees to hear first-hand about the scams that were going on within the companies. Watch the story yourself at the bottom of this post (7min). For a complete coverage of Browder’s speech at Standford GSB click here.
Browder started with $25 million in 1996, achieving almost tenfold gains in 18 months and then raised $1billion from new investors. At one stage the pot totalled $4 billion and Hermitage became Russia’s biggest foreign portfolio investor.
However, Mr Browder offended someone with great power – he insists that he still does not know who – and in November 2005 was refused re-entry into Russia. Since then Browder is one of the biggest enemies of the Russian state. [Source 1] [Source 2].
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