Investment trust insider on Russia – James Carthew: What Russia’s Ukraine war means for trusts
The war in Ukraine is having far-reaching consequences for the global economy and the investment companies market. None of us has a clear picture of how this will play out. Recently, Abrdn held a useful online discussion on different scenarios.
One conclusion was that sanctions are likely to be in place for some time to come. Most Russian equities cannot now be traded by foreign investors and, if sanctions persist, are effectively worthless.
Encouraged by major asset managers such as BlackRock, index providers MSCI and FTSE Russell are taking Russia out of their global and emerging markets benchmarks, and I think it may be a long time before it is reinstated.
Western companies are walking away from long-standing investments in the country and may not return until the Putin era is over. For example, Fidelity says that it will not invest in Russia and Belarus for the foreseeable future.
JPMorgan Russian (JRS) appears to trade on a significant premium to a much-diminished net asset value (NAV), but that is only a guesstimate. It held a continuation vote at its annual general meeting on Friday and shareholders… read more here