A security officer stands guard at the entrance of the headquarters of the Yukos oil company in Moscow in summer 2004.
Photo: Dmitry Lekay
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Yukos Yields Dubininskaya
// Company's Central Office to be Sold on Eve of Its 14th Anniversary
The association of Yukos creditors has scheduled the auction of the Samara group of Yukos assets for a total sum of almost $6 billion for May 10. That same day, the bankrupt oil giant's network of filling stations will also be available for purchase, and the day after that, the building that once housed the company's central office will go on the block. These sales will seal the demise of Yukos. Experts in the field express certainty that the production facilities will be snapped up by the government-owned Rosneft, which would then become Russia's largest oil company. The last auction will take place on the eve of the 14th anniversary of the day that Yukos was first legally registered.
At a meeting of the committee of Yukos creditors last Friday, it was confirmed that three lots of core assets belonging to the bankrupt oil giant will be put up for sale in May. Lot #11 will be the so-called Samara Group of companies, which includes the extraction enterprise Samaraneftegaz (extraction volume in 2006 – 9.3 million tons), three oil refineries (total production volume in 2006 – 19.67 million tons of oil), two gas refineries, a creamery, and the rest of the company's assets in the region. The opening bid will be 154.091 billion rubles (around $5.8 billion), and the auction will begin on May 10. Lot #12 has a price tag of 7.741 billion rubles and includes the remaining retail network of Yukos filling stations and terminals. The most expensive asset of lot #13 will be the building that housed the Yukos central office on Moscow's Dubininskaya Street.
The final step in the sale of the defunct company's most valuable remaining assets will take place on May 11, a day of some ironic significance: Yukos was first registered on May 12, 1993, exactly 14 years minus one day before the date of its essential liquidation. All that will remain of the company after these three sales will be a 49% share in the Slovak pipeline company Transpetrol (valued at $100-120 million). Earlier it was reported that the appraisal of Yukos' foreign assets was delayed because the company's receiver, Eduard Rebgun, was previously unable to gain access to documentation concerning foreign enterprises. However, according to information gathered by Kommersant, the appraisal is close to being complete, and the remaining assets have little liquidity and are not of significant interest. The total starting sum of the 13 lots is 693.7 billion rubles, while the company's debt to its creditors is around 709 billion rubles ($27.3 billion). Two auctions have already taken place, while one (the sale of several machine works) fell through due to a lack of bids. At the two auctions that went off successfully, the selling price of the lots did not significantly exceed the opening bid: at the sale of a 9.44% stake in Rosneft (bought by the company itself), the price was raised 1.18% during bidding, while during the sale of a 20% stake in Gazprom Neft and Yukos gas assets, the increase was 4.6%. In all likelihood, the sale of all of the company's assets will just about break even with its debt, with Yukos making no more than $100-200 million from the fire sale.
Experts in the field predict that the Samara group of assets and the network of filling stations will go to Rosneft, which has already asserted basic control over the Yukos Samara group, although it could face some competition from Gazprom Neft. "After the purchase of Yuganskneftegaz, due to a resulting imbalance between extraction and refining capabilities, Rosneft has long been sending its raw crude to the Samara plants," said MDM Bank analyst Andrei Gromadin.
Alfa Bank analyst Konstantin Batunin believes that "the filling stations, particularly in the Moscow region, are a very interesting business." Previously Rosneft, which until last year did not have its own filling stations in Moscow, said that it intends to expand its network in the region. At the same time, Gazprom Neft is already a player in the market: it owns stakes in a Moscow oil refinery and in a refinery in Yaroslavl. "So the state-owned companies could end up competing for the filling stations. In principle, that asset could be of interest to any large player that has its own means of production," said an expert, mentioning that LUKoil has also expressed interest in the networks. The expert also brought up the possibility, however, that private companies could be scared off from participating in the sales for political reasons.
Denis Rebrov
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 09, 2007
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