Communists would call him a capitalist robbing the Motherland. Generation X’ers would consider him a white-collar worker who has reached the top. His competitors call him ‘a leading trader of a leading company.’ His business card is concise – Ihor Maslyuk, sales & trading.
Maslyuk, a trader at brokerage Wood & Company, arrives to work at 8:30 a.m. ‘He’s never late,’ says Yana Svyatkina, office manager. ‘You know it’s half past eight when he enters.’
Dressed in a classy business suit, Maslyuk, 31, looks more like a model than a stock trader. But under the polished exterior, there’s a very shrewd and hard-working trader.
Maslyuk graduated from the physics department of Shevchenko University and qualified as an optical electronics engineer. ‘It’s typical for traders,’ Maslyuk said. ‘They’re not very often pure economists.’
Active trading usually starts at 11 a.m., when the PFTS electronic system comes online. Before that, Maslyuk has a lot to do. He analyzes the finances of Ukrainian share issuers. This usually involves long phone conversations with clients.
‘[The clients] are reliable Western investment funds and Maslyuk is soon deep in conversation.
Before coming to Wood & Co. in 1996, Maslyuk worked first as an independent trader and then as a director of a mutual funds at Hermes Investments.
He remembers how the August 1998 financial crisis punched the wind out of the stock market here.
‘It was the first time when the situation got really bad,’ Maslyuk said. ‘We’re practically the only non-resident brokerage that survived the crisis.’
He says Wood & Co. was saved by its classical approach to securities trading. The company sold 90 percent of its stocks just when the market started to plunge. The banks, meanwhile, preferred to hold onto their securities, hoping in vain that those prices would return to pre-crisis levels. ‘Some of them are still holding those worthless shares,’ Maslyuk said.
Noon finds Maslyuk sitting at his computer, studying PFTS data, and selecting the most appropriate deal. The average Ukrainian might think he’s simply playing games, toying with figures. Maslyuk admits that it might seem that way.
‘It’s hard to understand what I’m doing unless you are a specialist in finance,’ he said. ‘A deal must be carefully thought out and only then can it be done. Sometimes even one successful deal is enough.’
But Maslyuk usually closes more than a deal a day. Sometimes he skips meals, chasing a lucrative trade in Blue Chip shares.
‘Everyone is interested in the most attractive shares, like the energy sector, for instance,’ Maslyuk explained. ‘That’s why they’re called Blue Chips.’
From time to time he leaves the office to have a cup of extra-strong coffee and smoke an ultra light cigarette. But even in those moments of relaxation his phone rings every few minutes.
‘One of the job’s drawbacks,’ sighs Maslyuk, and sips his coffee.
Traders also had a hard time relaxing during the presidential campaign. But while other traders kept their heads down, Maslyuk came out in support of incumbent Leonid Kuchma in interviews with the press. So does he have strong feelings about the free market and democracy in Ukraine?
‘I just wanted to save my job,’ Maslyuk said. ‘If Symonenko had been elected, the investors would have left Ukraine in their underwear, afraid of being prosecuted.’
He believes Kuchma, despite having a poor economic reform record, deserves a second chance. ‘He can do a lot in five years,’ Maslyuk said of Kuchma. ‘If he [Kuchma] wants to be remembered as the leader of a prospering Ukraine, he must do his best to make the investment climate healthier.’
Maslyuk knows better than most the need for Ukraine to improve its image with foreign investors. Most of his clients are skeptical about the chances of making big profits here. Only transparent privatization and structural changes in the economy will make Ukrainian shares more attractive, Maslyuk said.
But after Kuchma’s win, Maslyuk isn’t so worried about keeping his job. Wood & Co. is the only brokerage firm to be constantly among the top three traders on the stock market. Along with the PFTS index, the Wood-15 is one of the most reliable stock indexes in Ukraine. And Maslyuk does not mind being ‘just a trader.’ For him, the creative aspect of putting deals together is much more interesting than mere company administration. His expertise has won him fame in the stock trading community, where his name is often mentioned in the same breath as that of his employer – Wood & Co. So what has Wood & Co. administration got to say about that?
‘What can I say?’ smiled Ivan Kompan, director of Ukrainian Wood & Co branch. ‘Ihor [Maslyuk] is one of our best employees. If he ever decides to leave, it will be a great loss for our company.’
By 5 p.m. the trading is almost over, but Maslyuk isn’t going home yet. He still has to attend a seminar on offshore companies. When he does eventually get home, he plans to take his wife to a nightclub or to the movies. It’s a Friday night after all, and Maslyuk doesn’t feel like spending it at home. But on weekdays he often stays at home and reads for a while. But you won’t find him reading papers on finance or economics in his spare time. ‘I prefer books,’ he said, smiling. ‘Good books.’
