Evgeny Serdyukov will head St. Petersburg Exchange instead of Roman Goryunov

One of the most famous figures has left the Russian stock market: the general director and co-owner of the sanctioned St. Petersburg Exchange, Roman Goryunov, left his post. He was replaced by first deputy Evgeniy Serdyukov, who had previously headed the site. Both top managers have actually worked together since the early 2000s, although Mr. Serdyukov was a much less public figure. While shareholders of the exchange react negatively to the reshuffle, in general, after the introduction of sanctions, it lost more than a third of its capitalization. Experts note that under conditions of severe restrictions, the site will need a change of strategy – a transition from trading in foreign securities to ruble instruments.

The St. Petersburg Exchange (SPB Exchange, came under US sanctions; see Kommersant, November 3) changed its general director on November 7. The place of Roman Goryunov, who headed the exchange since 2021, was taken by his first deputy Evgeny Serdyukov. Mr. Goryunov also resigned from the board of directors of the site.

Roman Goryunov was one of the most famous figures on the Russian stock market. Back in 1994, he headed the department for organizing trading in securities and financial instruments of the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange (now St. Petersburg Exchange). Since 2001, he worked at the NP RTS Stock Exchange (at that time the largest Russian stock exchange), which he headed six years later.

Under him, in 2011, the merger of two exchanges took place – RTS and MICEX. Having briefly worked as the first deputy chairman of the board of the merged MICEX-RTS exchange (now the Moscow Exchange), Mr. Goryunov headed NP RTS, from 2014 – Best Efforts Bank (now SPB-Bank), the future depositary of the St. Petersburg Exchange, and from 2021 – the trading platform itself. In the same year, the IPO of the St. Petersburg Exchange took place, which was valued at $1.3 billion.

Evgeny Serdyukov has long worked in tandem with Roman Goryunov, including on the RTS exchange.

He headed the St. Petersburg Exchange for almost ten years, where he organized trading in foreign securities and expanded the number of traded instruments, notes Arikapital investment strategist Sergei Suverov.

Now Mr. Serdyukov will primarily continue to work with counterparties to adapt to sanctions, primarily to provide investors with access to assets. After solving the primary task, the exchange will “implement a new development strategy, within the framework of which it will focus on trading in investment instruments with settlements in rubles, will preserve and develop projects on the Russian financial market,” the words of Evgeny Serdyukov are quoted in the message of the platform itself.

Experts interviewed by Kommersant call both top managers “experienced managers and iconic figures for the Russian financial market.” Roman Goryunov was at the origins of the creation and formation of both Russian exchanges, emphasizes independent financial analyst Andrei Barkhota; in fact, the architecture of the segment that has formed to date is largely due to his merit. The expert believes that Mr. Goryunov’s decision to leave the exchange is due to “personal sanction risks, which could also lead to property losses.”

For Mr. Serdyukov, the main task now is to organize anti-crisis management against the backdrop of the likely loss of the business of trading American securities, which occupied a significant share, and to refocus the exchange mainly on ruble transactions and instruments, Mr. Suverov believes.

The change in leadership indicates the complexity of the situation in which the site found itself after falling under US sanctions, says Finam FG analyst Igor Dodonov.

In his opinion, there is no possibility of resuming trading in foreign securities, and the exchange “will face a radical change in its business model, which will be carried out by the new leader.”

It will not be easy for the St. Petersburg Exchange to enter the segment of ruble instruments, given the almost absolute dominance of the Moscow Exchange in it, notes Mr. Dodonov. Investors also look at the situation rather pessimistically: at trading on the Moscow Exchange, shares of the St. Petersburg Exchange by 20:00 on November 7 lost more than 11%. In total, since the beginning of the month, the capitalization of the exchange has collapsed by more than 35%, to 13.7 billion rubles.

Ksenia Kulikova