This post was originally published on this site
The handful of remaining Russian-linked stocks trading in London were struggling to stay afloat Thursday, as the Russian invasion in Ukraine dragged to an eighth day, drawing global backlash.
The London Stock Exchange, in a move echoing the German Boerse earlier this week, announced it was suspending trade in secondary listings for Russian companies, which sweeps up companies such as Gazprom
OGZD,
and Sberbank
SBER,
The FTSE 100 index
UKX,
fell 1.3 % to 7,334, in a week that has seen the index lose 2.1%. Only energy stocks rose for the week as crude prices
CL00,
BRN00,
continued to march higher on Thursday, though BP
BP,
BP,
was flat and Shell
SHEL,
SHEL,
was down by 1.2%.
Shares of Anglo-Russian mining group Polymetal International
POLY,
tumbled 32%, bringing its year-to-date losses to 84%. The company reported earnings in line with expectations on Wednesday, and announced a dividend of 97 cents per share.
“The conflict in Ukraine and related economic and political developments are likely to require a lot of management efforts to maintain company performance,” Vitaly Nesis, group CEO of Anglo-Russian mining group Polymetal, said in announcing results those results.
Polymetal’s shares have been detached from its actual business, said Jonathan Guy, analyst at Berenberg, in a note to clients.
“Polymetal, as a company with two-thirds of its assets in Russia and a saint Petersburg-based management team, cannot be isolated from the current geopolitical turbulence associated with the sharp deterioration in relations between Russia and the West,” said Guy.
He said Polymetal really has no choice but to exit from the FTSE 100. “Ultimately, the Kazakh business may be separated from the Russian business, although at this point this isn’t management’s intention,” said Guy, who maintains a buy rating on the company, but has halved his share price to 500 pence from 1000 pence.
Shares of fellow Russian miner Evraz
EVR,
dropped 8%, bringing year-to-date losses to 84%, and Petropavlovsk
POG,
stock was bucking that trend, with a gain of 7%, but loss so far for 2022 of 88%.
The London Stock Exchange
LSEG,
itself released results on Thursday, with shares surging 9%.
“London Stock Exchange was much more confident on its ability to ride out the crisis pointing to the fact that its operations in Russia and Ukraine account for less than 1% of total income,” said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould, in a note to clients.
