18 september 2009

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Texas Pacific Group Investment Fund President David Bonderman

Participants:

Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Dear colleagues, Mr Bonderman, I am very pleased to meet with you in such a narrow circle in the framework of the Forum.

Your Fund has been operating in the Russian market not long enough, but it has already proven itself very well. I know that your company is present in various spheres and most of them are of interest for the Russian economy.

I am also aware that you have already decided to invest in Lenta, one of the Russian retail chains. In fact, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which is also a shareholder in Lenta, has welcomed the emergence of the new investor. I have recently met with the EBRD head Mr Mirow, and he confirmed the bank's approval of the Fund's decision to invest in Lenta.

We would welcome the expansion of your company's activity in Russia and hope that you will find new opportunities for investing your capitals and the capitals under management.

David Bonderman (as translated): Thank you very much for your nice words. First of all, I would like to say that we were all very impressed with your speech at the forum today.

In my opinion, you have laid out all important issues directly, openly, and candidly, which is not often the case with government officials.

As far as our Fund is concerned, it is, indeed, one of the largest in the world. We are present in 41 or even in 42 countries, including all BRIC countries and Indonesia.

During the round-table discussion today, I mentioned that Russia has quite significant advantages, related to the existence of a large number of educated employees, which creates an important potential for establishing and developing our relationship.

We are grateful that you have personally shown interest in the Lenta project and hope that the project will continue, as it has significant growth potential. Hopefully, you will have opportunity to occasionally shop at the store, when you are in St Petersburg.

Another project that I would like to mention is related to the creation in Russia of a low cost airline called Avianova. The airline began operating only three weeks ago has only 3 airplanes available. We hope that it will be rapidly growing.

And as I mentioned at the forum this morning, we pin significant hopes on cooperation in the framework of the contract concluded between GM, Sberbank, and Magna.