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Russneft Added to Registry
Basic Element of Oleg Deripaska set to preparing the deal to buy out Russneft from Mikhail Gutseriev at least a month ago. Since then, Interregional Registration Center that keeps registries of Deripaska’s firms has accumulated roughly two dozens of Russneft subsidiaries. What’s more, the bonds of Russneft are being aggressively acquired for Basic Element benefit.
Since early August, Interregional Registration Center has accepted for storage registries of roughly two dozen companies, the organization reported via its Web. All newcomers are Russneft subsidiaries and Service-Reestr was their previous registrar.
Given that Interregional Registration Center holds registries of Oleg Deripaska’s firms, the change of registrar gives rise to certain speculations – exactly Deripaska’s Basic Element is currently executing the deal to buy out Russneft from Mikhail Gutseriev. The fact that the latter has been added to the international wanted list and fled from Russia in August doesn’t appear of crucial importance for the deal’s progress. Moreover, sources close to Mikhail Gutseriev say the deal has been actually made already – Gutseriev got $3 billion and yielded to Deripaska control over offshore firms that are the end owners of Russneft.
The prime cause of the deal was evidently the crackdown of Russia’s authorities on Russneft. The company faced additional tax charges of 20 billion rubles, criminal cases were opened against Gutseriev and a few top managers, and tax authorities still endeavor to seize stocks of Russneft in the government’s favor. Gutseriev preferred to hand over the company to Deripaska instead of being crushed by the wheels of state.
It emerged in early September that Basic Element firms applied to Federal Antimonopoly Service for the sanction to buy out Russneft, but the decision hasn’t been taken yet. The official parties to the deal are Intendu and Continental.
In addition to the above moves of Basic Element, Russian Arbitration Fund (RAF) has been buying Russneft bonds for it over the recent months. The biggest deal was recorded in August; its amount reached 500 million rubles and the bonds were acquired at 90.3 percent of the par.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 14, 2007
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