Russia’s MD Medical brings in new IR director

MD Medical Group, Russia’s top provider of healthcare for women and children, has a new director guiding the investor relations program.

Maxim Novikov has more than seven years’ experience at LSE-listed Russian firms – making him perfectly positioned for MD Medical, which held a successful $311 mn offering in October 2012.

Prior to MD Medical, Novikov – a finance graduate of Moscow Lomonosov State University – was head of IR at RusHydro, ‘which was ranked on numerous occasions by Institutional Investor and Extel as one of Russia’s best companies for investor relations,’ according to an MD Medical press statement announcing Novikov’s arrival at the firm.

Welcoming him to the healthcare provider, Vitaly Ustimenko, MD Medical CFO, says: ‘He is a highly regarded professional in the area of financial communications and investor relations, and we strongly believe that Maxim will help us in realising our strategic objective of creating a modern, market-oriented investor relations function.’

On October 11, 2012, MD Medical shares floated on the London Stock Exchange at $12, rising three percent by the following morning. With a free float of around 35 percent, MD Medical said its market cap at the time would be around $900 mn. Continuing its smooth progress, the firm’s shares have grown more or less slowly but steadily to a high of $17.25 on March 15. Coupled with the company’s acquisition last week of IDK Medical, which operates women’s and children’s health clinics in Russia’s Samara region, newly arrived Novikov has a positive story to tell investors.