ИСТИНА

The entrepreneurial activities of the Nobel Brothers Petroleum Company (Branobel) - the largest joint-stock industrial enterprise in pre-revolutionary Russia - greatly contributed to the formation of the oil industry in the country. How did Branobel transform and adapt to external shocks and opportunities (especially in the financial scope)? What has been its impact on Russianl business culture? These questions are in the center of our research. Branobel company had not only domestic significance, but was also a part of the global market. In this paper we analyze the impact of internal and foreign policy factors (the first Russian Revolution (1905) and the Russo-Japanese war), as well as of business cycles on the functioning of the Branobel company. As our analysis shows, for Branobel, profit was the key factor determining the value of the company’s securities and dividends. Over the extent of the fifteen-year period under investigation, Russia’s industrial development underwent various phases of business cycle, including two industrial booms and a period of depression. Nobels’ shares dynamics corresponded to these phases, which indicates that these securities were mainly in the hands of ‘strong’ owners, not market speculators. By using flexible tactics to vary volumes of oil production and its prices, the company achieved substantial profits even in the difficult times for the Baku oil fields in 1905, due to introduction of new technologies for oil production and transportation (as well as management practices and professional skills) undertaken by Nobel brothers. The basis for the corresponding investments was formed in the course of market trading of the company’s securities at St. Petersburg and European stock markets. After the revolution of 1917, numerous oil depots, bases, enterprises and small towns established by Nobel brothers were wholly nationalized by the Bolshevik authorities. Subsequently, they became the basis for the oil industry of Soviet Russia. In 1918, Emmanuel Nobel moved to Sweden.