Jim Armitage: Stock Exchange is fertile ground for Russian rumours

Investors in Oleg Deripaska’s EN+ have by now written off the millions they’ve lost after being enticed by its flotation here in London. Now, Phosagro, another Russian company which has enjoyed the City’s red carpet treatment, gives cause for concern.

Shareholders in the $5 billion fertiliser maker — including Fidelity, Blackrock, Vanguard and others — awoke this morning to news that one of its big Russian shareholders’ own daughter says he should be barred from having a UK visa because of his ties to Vladimir Putin.

Olga Litvinenko has written to the Home Office alleging her father, the former Phosagro chairman Vladimir Litvinenko, made his fortune through his close relationship to the Russian president. Sound familiar?

Admittedly, she’s estranged from him and the pair are in an ugly legal battle, but it hardly looks good for Phosagro. Particularly when you consider its deputy chairman and co-owner Andrey Guriev — owner of London’s biggest house, Witanhurst — is on the US government’s “Putin List” of oligarchs close to the president. That doesn’t mean they, or the company, are sanctioned, but the EN+ experience surely sets an unnerving precedent.

As with EN+, Phosagro’s investors will have been reassured that the company had the blessing of London stock market regulators before buying in. They will have taken extra succour from the identity of its newest non-executive director; Phosagro was the first company Xavier Rolet joined after leaving the London Stock Exchange.

US investor Jim Rogers — who’s been taking big bets on the rouble lately — is clearly unfazed by the current Russian ruckus. He’s also on the Phosagro board. But, for all the gloss that Rogers, Rolet and London Stock Exchange give the company, in the current environment it all looks like lipstick on a potentially unpleasant pig. Phosagro is a stock only for the very brave.

MP’s waging the wrong pay war

Labour MP Siobhan McDonagh is a tireless campaigner against retail low pay. She’s currently waging a war against Sainsbury’s new deal for staff, getting 100 MPs to sign her petition against it.

Perhaps she should choose her targets more carefully.

Sainsbury’s is not a bad employer. The package it is pushing through, while ending paid lunch breaks, includes a big rise in hourly wages and will cost the company £110 million.

McDonagh previously fought similar campaigns on Marks & Spencer and B&Q. M&S, which gave in to her campaign in 2016, is now closing 100 stores. B&Q has also shut sites, and today highlights yet more poor trading.

Everybody wants more pay for workers, but campaigners must live in the real world. Retailers face higher business rates, the Living Wage and relentless growth of online.

If they can’t be flexible on pay, the inevitable result will be even bigger job cuts. Is that what McDonagh wants?