Vladimir Putin is used to taking flak from rivals in the former Soviet Union. Now he has to deal with opposition from a more unlikely location: Greenwich, Conn.
Two months ago the Wall Street Journal reported that a subsidiary of Russia's OAO United Aircraft had defaulted on its first payment toward $250 million of bonds. Despite personal appeals from the bondholders to some of Moscow's most powerful bureaucrats, no resolution was reached.
Before pursuing a protracted--and potentially futile - legal battle, noteholders appealed to Russia's most influential man, the former president and current prime minister.
"A problem of such magnitude needs resolution and will not simply go away," reads the letter on behalf of the bondholders from Randall Pike, president of Greenwich, Conn., investment bank BCP Securities. "Since Russia has made great strides under your leadership, we appeal directly to you."
These bondholders are unlikely to disappear like an inconvenient journalist...
