On 20 November 2025, the 3rd Annual M&A Forum "Mergers and Acquisitions in Russia" was held in Moscow. This year, the Forum brought together over 240 M&A professionals: representatives from regulatory bodies, business, and legal sectors, to discuss current issues and trends in the M&A market. Over recent years the event has established itself as a key event in the M&A field.
The forum's programme consisted of five sessions where leading experts, through keynote presentations and dynamic panel discussions, explored emerging trends and shared their forecasts for the future development of the M&A market.
The discussions were built around on the following key themes:
• General overview of the M&A market for 2025;
• New regulatory aspects of structuring M&A deals;
• The use of international companies, Closed-End Mutual Funds (CEF), and personal foundations in M&A transactions;
• Current post-closing issues in joint venture creation deals; and
• The use of AI in M&A deal structuring.
Nikolskaya Consulting organised a separate session focused on non-typical ways of structuring asset ownership and their use in M&A deals (CEFs, international companies, personal foundations).
The session panel was moderated by Alexei Roudiak, Managing Partner of Nikolskaya Consulting, and included Angelina Leushkina, Counsel in Corporate Practice of Nikolskaya Consulting, Dmitry Chirkin, Managing Partner of White Stone law firm, Marina Ermakova, CEO of MC GICM, and Yury Aldakimov, expert in the field of personal foundations and the securities market.
Angelina Leushkina, Counsel in Corporate Practice of Nikolskaya Consulting, shared an overview of key trends in ownership structuring over the past year. In her presentation, she noted that recent trends indicate a slowdown in pace of re-domiciliation to Russia, but at the same time, there is a noticeable increase in demand for opening CEFs and personal foundations. However, structuring these deals is a complex process, as each deal is unique and has to be prepared virtually from scratch.
Further developing the topic, Dmitry Chirkin, Managing Partner of White Stone, spoke about the evolution of structures for M&A deals. Dmitry attributed the emergence of non-typical ways of structuring asset ownership to sanction and counter-sanction reforms, as well as tax reform.
Marina Ermakova, CEO of MC GICM, in turn, focused in more detail on the specifics of CEF functioning. She noted a recent trend of increasing CEF usage, which is associated with a higher level of investor trust in this structure.
The session was concluded by Yury Aldakimov, who spoke about the essence of personal foundations. Personal foundations today offer advantages in the areas of asset protection and property management. Key benefits include confidentiality, protection of assets from creditors after a certain period, and the possibility of phased asset transfer on favorable terms.
Summing up the session, we note that non-typical ways of structuring asset ownership arise from the pursuit of tax optimisation, risk management, liquidity management and business flexibility, as well as from the need to comply with changing legislative landscape and specific needs of companies.
We are delighted that our session and the entire forum were successful. We hope that next year the event will attract even larger audience and host another lively discussion.