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Nadya Nesterova Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva:

The investor landscape in Russia is tough this year, what with falling stock market, currency, oil prices and sanctions. Both local and foreign investors have been jumpy. However, this is a time of opportunity for contrarian investors.

Local investors are not positive about their own alternative investments industry, says Gregory Klumov, during the recent Opalesque Russia Roundtable. One of the reasons is that 90% of the industry has had negative returns in the past couple of years, as most funds were dealing with the local stock market. (The Market Vectors Russia ETF (RSX) is down 22.5% YTD, to 21.36.) Klumov manages the portfolio for SBD Global Fund, a captive hedge fund with an absolute return mandate.

"The result is that the most popular "alternatives" products here are dollar denominated capital protected notes, issued by state-owned banks and real estate, sometimes levered," he adds. There is also a trend for fixed income. The asset class saw a sell off due to recent political events, and many private banks are steering clients towards Eurobonds. Among the more risky assets, investors like structured notes "with the cash flow stream invested into call options on assets like U.S. stock indices, gold or some ETF." But as far as the alternative asset class is concerned, Klumov conti......................

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