HSBC Shuts Russia’s Hermitage Capital Fund

HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) is closing Hermitage Capital Management Ltd.’s flagship Russia fund just as its co-founder, William Browder, is being sued for libel in London and tried in absentia for tax evasion in Moscow. “It was too small to continue as a viable concern,” Browder, 48, said by phone yesterday from London, where he’s based. Browder said the closing is “completely” in the hands of HSBC, which is the trustee and manager of the fund. The Hermitage Fund, which Browder started in 1996 with the late billionaire Edmond Safra, was the largest foreign owner of Russian shares when it peaked at more than $4 billion in 2005, according to Browder. Russia that year barred Browder from the country without explanation, triggering years of legal conflict, including over the 2009 death of Hermitage adviser Sergei Magnitsky while he was in pretrial detention in Moscow.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-26/hsbc-shutters-hermitage-fund-as-russia-chases-browder-in-courts.html
http://www.lenta.ru/news/2013/03/26/shut/