KamAZ, Chemezov, Rostechnologii and Daimler. Discuss.

Anotherbump in the road for Daimler as it pursues a stake in KamAZ. 

We said earlier that this needs watching, and we would seem to have been correct in our pessimism. This report suggests that a sticking point may be the demands of Sergei Kogogin, currently described as the 'plant's director general', who wants to stay in place. Kogogin owns a 0.002545 per cent piece of KamAZ.

This would be fair enough, but some analysts point to a broader motive at work here; the report quotes Dmitry Baranov from Finam as suggesting that Kogogin's motives may be less personal in nature, and more to do with Russian government aims to control the company through him.

Rostechnologii and Sergey Chemezov are two names that should be at the front of Daimler's strategic thinking at present. Rostechnologii  (Russian Technologies) owns a considerable lump of KamAZ, and Chemezov, the man behind the name, is ranked as Russia's third most influential businessman, coming in above Oleg Deripaska of GAZ fame. More to the point, Chemezov is joined at the hip to Putin, who would still seem to be very much in charge. Rostechnologii, from what we can establish, is very much a Putin pet project, and Putin's patronage is not without value. 

Does Daimler want to get involved in this? Were everything to remain equal, KamAZ should be something of a no-brainer; the opportunity to acquire a third of what is potentially one of the world's biggest truck markets is something worthy of at least a bit of consideration. However, this has the makings of a mess; Chemezov is no economic liberal, and Rostechnologii smacks of the Soviet era. Quite how good an investment that makes KamAZ, we know not.