LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) – Confiscating the assets of companies that have fled Russia after the invasion of Ukraine would shatter investor confidence for decades and take Russia back to the calamitous days of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, metals magnate Vladimir Potanin said.
Potanin, the biggest shareholder in Norilsk Nickel (GMKN.MM), the world’s largest producer of palladium and refined nickel, said Russia should respond with pragmatism to its exclusion from whole swathes of the global economy.
“We should not try to ‘slam the door’ but endeavour to preserve Russia’s economic position in those markets which we spent so long cultivating,” Potanin, the 61-year-old president of Norilsk Nickel, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Potanin said confiscating assets from companies which had left Russia would put the country out in the cold for investors for decades. “It would take us back 100 years to 1917 and the consequences – a global lack of confidence in Russia from investors – we would feel for many decades,” Potanin said.
For the rest of this article: https://www.reuters.com/business/dont-take-russia-back-1917-russias-metals-king-warns-2022-03-11/