Want to do Business in Cuba?: Foreign Investors Learn Hard (Albeit Late) Lessons

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Bill Browder was -- until recently -- Russia's largest foreign investor.

Until he learned a hard lesson (below) about doing business with tyrants.

Now Browder is Putin's biggest foreign foe.

This is akin to British businessman Steven Purvis' experience in Cuba, where he was -- until recently -- one of Castro's most important business partners, until one day he found himself arbitrarily imprisoned and with all his assets illegally confiscated.

Now Purvis is warning other potential foreign investors about the dangers of doing business with Castro.

Of course, it would have been nice if Browder and Purvis would have consulted with their conscience before making billions for Putin and Castro. 

But better late than never.

(A good lesson for advocates of lifting U.S. sanctions.)

Excerpt from this weekend's Financial Times:

Bill Browder has a stark warning for western investors eyeing opportunities in Russia. “They are not only taking a financial risk – they are taking a very serious personal risk of being arrested or dying,” he says. The same applies to educated Russians: “Even Russians who have the ability and language skills should get out of Russia, because it is only going one way and that is in a very horrible direction.”

Browder should know: his experience over the past two decades provides a spectacular example. During that time, the head of Hermitage Capital Management – at one point one of the largest foreign investors into the country – has gone from staunchly rejecting what he once called western myths about Russia to being a crusader against President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Browder’s next goal is to persuade the British, Dutch, German and Swedish governments, as well as the EU, to pass their own versions of the Magnitsky law. For him such laws have not become ends in themselves but a way of putting pressure on the Putin regime. “It is my expectation that the Magnitsky Act, by freezing assets and banning visas, will become the new policy tool that the west uses not just in this case but in all terrible cases coming out of Russia.”

Browder views those western leaders who refuse to take a harsh line on Russia with disdain. This is particularly true of the British government for its failure to order a public inquiry into the death by radiation poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence officer who had taken refuge in the UK.