Moscow 'Tsar' quits CSFB

Boris Jordan, the 28-year-old "Tsar" of Moscow's investment banking community, has resigned from CS First Boston and is set to establish a new firm devoted to the development of Russian investment banking and securities business, writes James Bethell.

He will be joined by Stephen Jennings, co-head of the firm's office in Moscow.

The move is a blow for CSFB which, at the initiative of Hans-Joerg Rudloff, former chairman, built up one of the strongest Western banking operations in Russia. With 50 staff and revenues of $100m last year it captured about two-thirds of the $1.8bn investment in to Russia.

Mr Jordan is a leading bull of the volatile Russian market, which he believes will rocket once capital flight, running at $40bn a year, is reversed and foreign investments of about $30bn a year begin flowing in. This, he believes, will happen once Western investors realise "unprecedented profits" are waiting to be made.

However, his ambitions are said to be thwarted by the growing anti-Westernisation among the Russian financial community. He is rumoured to be joining with a Russian partner in an attempt to grow closer to local interests.

Russia's uncertain political and legal situation is not, he insists, an issue. "The Vanderbilts and Morgans were shooting each other in the US at the turn of the century," he was reported as saying. "Look where it is now."