Global investors are increasingly looking beyond the United States in search of undervalued growth opportunities. Europe, emerging markets, and regional markets with lower valuation multiples are once again attracting attention. Against this backdrop, Russian assets, which remain under a deep sanction discount, may once again catch the eye of international capital, provided the geopolitical background improves.
Several international investment funds are already working on scenarios for a rapid return to Russian assets in the event that sanctions are lifted or substantially eased. For now, this does not involve ready-made investment decisions. The Russian market remains closed to a significant portion of Western capital. However, the very fact that such discussions are taking place shows that if geopolitical tensions ease, Russian assets could once again attack the attention of global investors.
This interest fits into a broader market trend. After years of capital concentration in the US assets, investors are re-evaluating markets with lower multiples, high margins, and catch-up growth potential. Russia remains one of the most deeply discounted markets globally, largely because of sanctions and restrictions on foreign participation.
But if the external environment changes, the revaluation is unlikely to be uniform. The key question for investors will not be whether the Russian market can rise as a whole – although that certainly can be expected if and when restrictions ease – but which companies could benefit first from a narrowing sanctions-related discount.
Commodity exporters would naturally be among the first names to attract attention. Large consumer companies and retailers may also remain in focus because of their strong operating performance.
However, in many of these cases, part of the upside is already reflected in market expectations. In addition, some domestic consumer businesses are less directly affected by sanctions, which limits the scope for a dramatic rerating.
The more interesting opportunity may lie elsewhere: in sectors where the sanctions discount overlaps with strong business momentum and where international comparability matters. This is particularly relevant for fintech, platform IT and cybersecurity.
These industries are closely linked to global valuation benchmarks, investor access and cross-border technology infrastructure. If sanctions pressure eases, the improvement in market sentiment could be amplified by already visible business growth.
Fintech
Russian fintech remains one of the most obvious areas where valuations diverge from international peers. Comparable businesses in other emerging markets often trade at significantly higher multiples.
To evaluate the Russian fintech market, one can look at markets with similar indicators. For example, Latin American fintechs like Brazil’s Nu Holdings (whose founder openly drew inspiration from the Russian model) trade at multiples several times higher than the valuations of comparable Russian public entities. Kazakhstan’s Kaspi serves as a regional analogue; in an open market, its capitalization includes a premium for accessibility to external investors.
The Russian digital finance sector, by contrast, is at a deep discount – not because of business quality or growth rates, but solely due to sanction barriers. If restrictions are lifted, this discount will begin to collapse, and a comparative analysis based on GARP (Growth at a Reasonable Price) criteria points to a revaluation potential aligned with international peers.
In this context, T-Bank looks like the leader among fintechs. It is one of the few Russian issuers where the sanction discount is combined with business acceleration. By the end of 2025, the revenue of the T-Technologies group grew by 49% year-on-year, reaching nearly $18 billion, while operational net profit rose by 43% to 2.18 billion rubles, and return on equity (ROE) stood at 29.1% – which remains a high level even compared to fast-growing international fintechs.
If restrictions are eased, T-Bank could be one of the first Russian financial technology names to be reassessed by investors. The company has already demonstrated that it can grow, maintain high returns on capital and expand its ecosystem even without full access to international capital markets.
Cybersecurity
Another sector with the greatest upside potential remains cybersecurity.
Unlike traditional areas of corporate spending, investments in cybersecurity can be partially optimized but cannot be postponed indefinitely. Companies that delay investment in cybersecurity face direct operational, financial and reputational risks. This makes cybersecurity one of the most resilient areas of technology spending globally.
The largest public players in cybersecurity – Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Fortinet, Check Point, and others – are perceived by investors not as classic IT vendors, but as infrastructure companies of the digital economy. Demand is supported by the growth of cyber threats, regulation, digitalization and the shift toward platform-based security solutions.
This is why international cybersecurity companies usually command a higher valuation than many traditional IT companies with comparable growth rates. According to Gartner, global spending on cybersecurity was projected to reach $213 billion in 2025 and grow by another 12.5% in 2026 to $240 billion. At the same time, leading companies in the sector continue to grow faster than the market: Palo Alto Networks’ revenue for fiscal year 2025 increased by 15% to $9.2 billion, while CrowdStrike’s revenue for fiscal year 2025 grew by 29% to $3.95 billion.
In Russia, the leading and currently only public company in this segment is Positive Technologies. This makes it a natural point of reference for investors looking at the Russian cybersecurity market.
The company combines exposure to a structurally growing sector with a valuation still affected by the broader sanctions discount. According to a recently published report, shipment volumes at the end of 2025 reached over $426 million, up 40% from the previous year.
The result of high growth momentum in shipments, coupled with strict cost controls, was the return of the NIC (Net Interest Income/management net profit excluding capitalized expenses) indicator to positive territory. At the end of the year, NIC stood at $33.75 million, compared to a loss a year earlier. Net profit under IFRS standards doubled, amounting to $91.25 million.
This is particularly impressive against the backdrop of the overall dynamics of the sector. According to estimates by Russian researchers, the information security market in Russia will grow by nearly 10-15% in 2026, exceeding $5.5 billion, and could approach $12 billion by 2031 (a CAGR of 21%).
For Positive Technologies, geopolitical de-escalation would therefore not create the growth story from scratch. Rather, it could become a catalyst for investors to reprice an already established business operating in a sector where demand is becoming increasingly critical.
An improvement in the general geopolitical background and the potential return of foreign investors to the Russian market are also highly likely to push other companies in the sector that previously announced such plans, notably Solar and F6, toward public listings.
Platform IT
Major platform IT companies may also see meaningful upside in a more constructive market environment.
Over the past several years, this sector has gone through a rapid market restructuring. The departure of some foreign players, growth in domestic demand, the strengthening of local ecosystems and the expansion of digital services have reshaped the market. As a result, large Russian platforms have become even more embedded in consumer and business infrastructure.
The most obvious candidate for revaluation in this category appears to be Yandex. It is the largest public platform IT company on the Russian market, featuring diversified revenue, strong positions across several digital verticals, and a business model that is clear to investors.
By the end of 2025, the group’s revenue grew by 32% to $18 billion, adjusted EBITDA rose by 49% to $3.51 billion, and adjusted net profit increased by 40% to $1.77 billion. Importantly, this growth is driven not by a single vertical, but by multiple segments simultaneously, such as City Services (up 36% for the year), Personal Services (up 61% for the year), and B2B Tech (up 48% for the year).
At the same time, according to estimates by the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, the volume of the Runet (Russian internet) economy at the end of 2025 amounted to $390-$402.5 billion, corresponding to a year-on-year growth of 30-34%. Even taking into account the slowdown in certain segments, major digital platforms in Russia continue to grow faster than many traditional industries.
For Yandex, the key investment argument is the combination of scale, diversification and comparability with global platform companies. If foreign investors regain access to Russian equities, Yandex would likely be one of the first names they revisit.
A selective Revaluation, not a market-wide bet
The potential return of foreign investors to Russian assets would not automatically lift all companies equally. The first beneficiaries are likely to be issuers where the market discount is still significant, but the business has continued to grow despite external restrictions.
In a de-escalation scenario, investors would not simply be buying “Russia” as a broad market theme. They would be looking for companies where sanctions-related pressure has held back valuations more than business performance. Those issuers could become the most attractive way to play a normalisation of the external environment.
