Following a series of corporate cyberattacks that American intelligence agencies have blamed on Russian actors, Russia's sovereign wealth fund (officially the National Wellbeing Fund) has decided to dump all of its dollars and dollar-denominated assets in favor of those denominated in euros, yuan - or simply buying precious metals like gold, which Russia's central bank has increasingly favored for its own reserves.
Finance Minister Anton Siluanov made the announcement Thursday morning at the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
"We can make this change rather quickly, within a month," Siluanov told reporters Thursday.
He explained that the Kremlin is moving to reduce exposure to US assets as President Biden threatens more economic sanctions against Russia following the latest ransomware attacks. The transfer will affect $119 billion in liquid assets, Bloomberg reported, but the sales will largely be executed through the Russian Central bank and its massive reserves, limiting the market impact and reducing visibility on what exactly the sovereign wealth fund will be buying.
“The central bank can make these changes to the Wellbeing Fund without resorting to market operations,” said Sofya Donets, economist at Renaissance Capital in Moscow. “This in some sense a technical thing."
Jordan Rochester, currency strategist at Nomura International PLC, said, “This is a transfer of euros from the central bank to the wealth fund, we’ll then see the central bank the holder of the USDs and it’s up to them to manage it. No initial market impact."
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