Ukraine in Arabic | The sharp drop in the Russian ruble

28.05.2015 - 16:14 #Russia, #Ruble, #collapse, #Kremlin, #financial, #Central Bank

Ruble collapse costs big Russian companies more than RUB 300 bln in losses. The sharp drop in the ruble in 2014 in the wake of punishing Western sanctions against Kremlin aggression has cost Russian companies dear, with some estimates putting their losses over the year as a result at RUB 300 billion.

Kiev/ Ukraine in Arabic/ Ruble collapse costs big Russian companies more than RUB 300 bln in losses. The sharp drop in the ruble in 2014 in the wake of punishing Western sanctions against Kremlin aggression has cost Russian companies dear, with some estimates putting their losses over the year as a result at RUB 300 billion.

At the end of last year, the director of financial stability department of the Central Bank Sergey Moiseyev expressed concern over the fact that companies incurred billions of dollars in losses from derivatives that have a foreign currency exchange risk component.

Moiseyev did not disclose the details, but they were reflected in the annual statements. Now Russian information agency RBK has analyzed the reports of the 30 largest Russian companies in terms of revenues.

It turned out that 14 of them had currency swaps in 2014, with only three generating profits from these transactions (another company made a profit from oil futures). The losses reflected in their statements totaled RUB 317 billion.

This does not imply that companies suffered direct losses of the mentioned amount last year, as clarified by the executive director of the Association of Professional Investors (API) Olexander Shevchuk.