Alfa Bank, one of Russia’s largest private lenders , cut its estimate for the nation’s growth in 2016 as the selloff in oil has given the world’s largest energy exporter a “worse than expected” start to the year. The economy will shrink 1.5 percent this year, Alfa Bank’s Natalia Orlova said in a report on Monday, cutting her previous forecast for an expansion of 0.3 percent. The call follows a string of recent growth downgrades by economists and comes as capital investment to retail sales slumped in December, while full-year data showed gross domestic product in 2015 shrank the most in six years. Russia is facing a second year of contraction as oil, which together with gas make up half of the country’s budget revenue, has slumped to a 12-year low, sending the ruble to the biggest decline among emerging-market peers. Brent crude at $35 a barrel would cause […]