Reuters exclusive: American banker and Putin ally dealt in access and assets

Reuters exclusively reported a senior American banker once secretly awarded a shareholding in powerful Moscow investment bank Renaissance Capital to one of Vladimir Putin’s closest friends and brokered meetings for the friend with top U.S. foreign policy officials a decade ago. A cache of Renaissance Capital emails from 2007 to 2011, reviewed by Reuters, reveal new details about the close relationship Robert Foresman cultivated within Putin’s circle over the years and how he leveraged these ties to win deals. The emails also shine a light on the part played by Western bankers in the heady days of Moscow’s 2007 economic boom, when the Kremlin was moving to take over ever greater swathes of the Russian economy.