Pessimism of Russian CEOs Falls to Record Low

Russian large and medium-sized businesses are on the rise after passing through the acute phase of the CORONAVIRUS pandemic, revenue is returning to pre-crisis levels and the business is planning to hire new employees, according to a regular study by Deloitte in the CIS “Survey of CFOs of leading companies in Russia” (available from RBC).

Among the 76 CFOs surveyed, 56% were optimistic about their companies' financial outlook, while pessimism fell to 4%, the absolute lowest since early 2015. Compared to the previous survey (conducted twice a year), the share of optimistic assessments has increased from 46%, while the share of pessimistic ones has decreased from 21%.

“It can be said that representatives of Russian business are confident that the crisis caused by COVID-19 has been overcome,” the authors of the study say. “In the course of this study, we have identified a number of trends indicating that a turning point in the vector of the pandemic’s impact on the domestic market has already occurred and COVID-19 is no longer a key driver of business development in RUSSIA,” stated a partner in the Deloitte Risk Management Department in CIS Ekaterina Trofimova. “Companies have successfully adapted to a high degree of uncertainty,” she says.

The Deloitte survey was conducted primarily among large businesses (87% of respondents represent companies with revenues of more than 2 billion rubles), but about ten medium-sized companies were also surveyed. Meanwhile, the main victims of this crisis were representatives of small and medium-sized businesses. The fact that the epicenter of the coronacrisis was "small business, which suffered the main blow," in particular, said First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov in an interview with RBC.