Alliance Throws Its Hat into YUKOS Ring
Musa Bazhaev, head of the Alliance Group, told Kommersant yesterday that the Alliance Oil Co. will bid for YUKOS assets. Analysts say that Alliance may want any of the bankrupt oil company's properties, but its chances of getting the good ones are small. Meanwhile, the company's IPO, first planned for May, has been postponed indefinitely.
Alliance's main asset is the Khabarovsk oil refinery and a sales network in the Russian Far East, so it could use YUKOS properties to create a vertical holding. Alliance Group was founded in 1998 by Zia Bazhaev, the former president of SIDANKO who died in 2000 in a plane crash. The Bazhaev family controls about 83 percent of the group. The group sold its Ukrainian assets, including the Kherson oil refinery, to the Cypriote Eatongate Holdings Ltd at the beginning of this month.
MDM Bank analyst Andrey Gromadin said that YUKOS assets will probably be sold in groups by regions, as is being discussed now by the YUKOS creditors' committee, with each lot costing about $9 billion dollars, which is more than Alliance could afford. The chain of YUKOS filling stations may also be of interest to Alliance, if it is sold separately.
The Alliance Group initial public offering is being organized by Morgan Stanley and Troika Dialog. It is planned to sell shares “up to a blocking package,” according to Musa Bazhaev. Kommersant has learned that the IPO is unlikely to take place before the end of the year.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 30, 2007
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