Russian companies took the third place in terms of IPO volume leaving British and Brazilian companies behind, the Kommersant newspaper reports Monday. These are the data of the first half of 2007, provided by Thomson Financial.
      
      According to the survey, the US companies are the leaders with their amount of outstanding shares equal to 21.57 billion US dollars. Chinese companies got the second position with 17.83 billion US dollars as a result. Russian firms go third with 15.83 billion. At this IPO conducted by Russian second biggest bank VTB turned out to become the world’s largest in the first half of 2007 and made up $7.9 billion.
      
      Besides, it was noted that the London Stock Exchange keeps the top position among exchanges, since about 30 IPO to the amount of $26 billion were placed on the LSE. The Russian RTS unexpectedly got the third position ($10.86 billion), yielding to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange ($12.89 billion).
      
      sources:
      www.newsru.com
      www.grani.ru