Troika Dialog Managers Leave Firm; Layoffs on Tap

WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE

May 29, 2009

By JASON CORCORAN and HARRY WILSON

Two senior managers have left Troika Dialog after a tumultuous nine months for the Moscow-based financial group that included a collapse in Russian stock prices and the sale of a stake to Standard Bank Group Ltd. in March.

The chief executive of Troika Dialog's U.K. business, Howard Snell, has resigned. Giedrius Pukas, the managing director of Troika Capital Partners, the group's alternative-asset-management division, is leaving with a senior team to launch his own firm, according to the bank.

Mr. Snell resigned from Troika this week but will remain on the board of directors of the U.K. business for a couple of months. He said he would take the next months off to assess his options. Two people close to the situation said his departure wasn't connected to a Troika program to reduce its head count.

Mr. Pukas, who is leaving along with two colleagues, joined Troika in early 2004 and said he was leaving with a senior team to set up an investment and private-equity firm called Quadro Capital Partners.

His responsibilities as managing director and chief investment officer of Troika Capital Partners are to be divided between Mikhail Broitman, managing director of the strategic-projects division, and Kanako Sekine, who joined as chief operating officer last year.

A spokeswoman for Troika Dialog said, "Troika Capital Partners initiated a separation with Giedrius Pukas. As a result of a semiannual performance review of staff, a number of Troika Dialog group employees were terminated as well."

She added that following the review, performed from March to April, the bank had separately decided to make a "small number" of cuts and will announce several senior appointments in London and New York imminently. At the start of the year Troika revealed plans to cut 25% of its total head count, although the bank now says the layoffs are likely to reach 30%.

Troika Dialog entered a strategic alliance with Standard Bank in March after selling a 33% stake for $200 million and is reorganizing its business lines to integrate it with the South African bank's Moscow-based operations. It is still awaiting regulatory approval before it can work as a joint team. Standard Bank has its own private-equity team in Moscow, to be integrated with Troika Capital Partners, which has about $2.3 billion in funds under management in private equity and venture capital.