Loans for shares scheme | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 08/02/2019

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loans_for_shares_scheme


00:04:52 See also



Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.

Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain

Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.

Listen on Google Assistant through Extra Audio:
https://assistant.google.com/services/invoke/uid/0000001a130b3f91
Other Wikipedia audio articles at:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wikipedia+tts
Upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
https://github.com/nodef/wikipedia-tts
Speaking Rate: 0.8272463443353548
Voice name: en-GB-Wavenet-B


"I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think."
- Socrates


SUMMARY
=======
Beginning in 1995, Boris Yeltsin's government began privatizing state-owned shares in companies through a loans for shares scheme. The privatization was primarily overseen by Chubais. The scheme benefited Yeltsin in acquiring funds to assist his bid for reelection.
To make the companies profitable, the new investors sought to restructure them and install a western-style management approach. However, that require them to push out entrenched managers with communist allegiances. This had already become an immensely more cumbersome task once the communists took control of Russia's legislature in the 1995 elections and would be made excruciatingly challenging if the communists were to take control of Russia's executive government. Consequentially, in order for the companies turn a profit, investors felt that the Communists would need to lose the election.  The auctions were rigged and lacked competition, being largely controlled by favored insiders with political connections or used for the benefit of the commercial banks themselves.The scheme was primarily overseen by Anatoly Chubais.The scheme was structured in a manner that made Yeltsin's victory a strong interest of the investors involved. The two-stage program was structured so that the loans would be made before the election, but the auction of the shares could only take place begin after the election, making it of financial concern for them that Yeltsin would win the election.On August 31, 1995, Yeltsin held an initial meeting attended by ten Russian business moguls about banking issues. In his remarks, Yeltsin made comments about his belief that the banks should have a political role. “Russian bankers take part in the country’s political life. . . . The banks, like all of Russia, are learning democracy.”
The loans-for-shares auctions in November–December 1995 allowed the more conspicuous of “the oligarchs,” as they were now known, to reposition as captains of industry. Initially dreamt up by Vladimir Potanin of Oneximbank, this privatization scheme was backed by Chubais but also by Kremlin conservatives like Soskovets, who was the one to get Yeltsin’s signature on it. 37 At bargain-basement prices, Potanin picked up Norilsk Nickel, the world’s number one smelter of palladium and nickel, and he, Mikhail Khodorkovskii of Menatep, and Boris Berezovskii acquired the oil giants Sidanco, Yukos, and Sibneft.
In 1995, facing severe fiscal deficit and in desperate need of funds for the 1996 presidential elections, the government of Boris Yeltsin adopted a "loans-for-share" scheme proposed by banker Vladimir Potanin and endorsed by Chubais, then a deputy prime minister, whereby some of the largest state industrial assets (including state-owned shares in Norilsk Nickel, Yukos, Lukoil, Sibneft, Surgutneftegas, Novolipetsk Steel, and Mechel) were leased through auctions for money lent by commercial banks to the government. The auctions were rigged and lacked competition, being largely controlled by favored insiders with political connections or used for the benefit of the commercial banks themselves. As neither the loans nor the leased enterprises were returned in time, this effectively became a form of selling, or privatizing, state assets at very low prices.

A "less cynical" interpretation was proposed by Professor of political science and international studies, Russell Bova, who offered as an alternative, that Chubais may have been motivated by concerns that privatization would fail, that in the face of mid-1990s economic difficulty, the country might revert towards a Communist resurgence if progress was not maintained, and that in light of these concerns, the long term political goals  ...