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Sibneft Stocks Not Coming Back to Russia
Gazprom’s subsidiary Gazprom Finance BV (GF), Netherlands, has applied to Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) for a sanction for the purchase of the majority stake in Sibneft, FAS announced October 5, 2005, signaling Sibneft stocks executed in the name of offshore companies won’t come back to Russia but remain abroad and pass to the creditor banks in case of delay in the loan settlement.
In late September, Gazprom and Millhouse Capital sealed the binding documents for the purchase of 72.663 percent in Sibneft for $13.1 billion, paving the way to the deal, which is expected to be clinched before the end of October but which pattern has not been unveiled so far.
FAS made it clear yesterday Sibneft stocks are likely go to Gazprom Finance BV. The deal may also require the EC authorization, as Gazprom Finance BV is incorporated in the European Union.
According to the Q2’05 report of Gazprom, it owns 100 percent in GF. Mikhail Sereda, who is the deputy chairman at Gazprom’s management committee, is also the GF managing director. Another deputy chairman of the management committee of the gas monopoly – Andrey Kruglov – is the executive director at GF.
Gazprom declined to comment Tuesday. A source with the gas monopoly said off-the-record GF was picked out because the syndicated loan to buy out Sibneft had been raised with the foreign banks exclusively. The thing is that the laws of the Netherlands are the most suitable for the creditor banks (ABM Amro, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Golgman Sashs, Credit Suisse) as they guarantee the whole title. In other words, the banks may loan money on security of acquired stocks of Sibneft and would actually get the stocks in their onwership, should the funds be not paid off in time. And all these moves could be made with the deal never falling under the Russian jurisdiction.
Gazprom briefer Sergey Kupriyanov announced not long ago Sibneft is not the last asset to be bought out by the gas holding. The next target of Gazprom, the analysts say, is some portion of YUKOS assets to be followed by Bashkir refineries currently owned by Ural Rakhimov’s Bashkir Capital and AFK Sistema. Moreover, as Gazprom’s interest in Sakhalin projects of Rosneft is an open secret, some analysts say it may swap Sibneft for those assets.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 05, 2005
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