Russia's Richest Woman Seeks Government Bailout

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Mar 20th 2009 at 6:02PM

Russia's richest woman, Yelena Baturina,is now seeking a financial bailout. Baturina owns a construction and real estate firm, Inteko, which has fallen on hard times recently.

Yelena Baturina started out as a factory worker but got a degree in management and worked for the Moscow government where she met her husband Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. She founded Inteko with her brother and the rumor is that she used her husband's political power to secure lucrative federal and municipal building contracts.

Now Inteko is in trouble as falling real estate prices have led to construction slowdowns and Inteko is struggling with major debt accrued when it used bank loans to buy stakes in companies like Gazprom. Baturina's wealth has plummeted and she is off the Forbes list of billionaires. She's seeking around $1.4 billion in government loan guarantees to help expand Inteko's manufacturing base. While it seems that no one really wants to see Baturina get her hands on more money the bailout might be necessary to prop up the construction market.

Tags: inteko, russia, yelena baturina, YelenaBaturina