Russia cannot be ignored

Liam Halligan is a one-man cheering section for the investment opportunity in Russia. As a former Economist and Financial Times correspondent in Moscow, Halligan is far from naive or gullible. His views on the Russian economy are firmly based on economic facts, not fictions. Halligan is chief economist and a founding board member of Prosperity Capital Management, set up in 1996 to focus purely on Russian and the former soviet republics and now with $2.8 billion assets under management (AUM)

Its client base is purely non-Russian, made up of sovereign wealth funds, family offices, private banks, insurance and pension companies and endowments. PCM is a purely long only business, "never shorting, no derivatives and no leverage. That's why we survived. We've never gated or imposed any redemption restrictions. We have weekly liquidity on one fund and monthly liquidity on the other," says Halligan.

PCM is an active investor. It sits on the boards of 40% of its assets.

"The main game in