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People’s IPOs Lose the People
Russia’s entrepreneurs are selling the stocks that they acquired in the course of the people’s IPOs. It emerged that Elena Baturina sold a half of her stake in Sberbank. The two-month sales of Rosneft stocks reached roughly $1 billion. In the environment of liquidity problems, the business community prefers to place funds in projects with higher potential yield, the analysts speculate.
The fact that Elena Baturina, who is the spouse of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov in addition to being the most successful businesswoman, had sold a portion of her stake in Sberbank was reported by a source close to her. The news was no secret for a top manager, who has the stocks of Sberbank in portfolio. According to him, “her stake was being sold gradually on the market, in the course of the last month.” Roughly 0.5 percent in Sberbank worth around $460 million was sold as a result.
Baturina bought Sberbank stocks in the middle of past year and widened the stake by $111 million during the March SPO, i.e. she owned around 1 percent in that bank. Sberbank quotes grew over 135 percent from past year’s July. “It is evident that Sberbank stocks won’t manifest the same growth next year, their annual potential doesn’t exceed 30 percent,” forecasted Uralsib analyst Leonid Slipchenko.
Baturina is by far not the single one in the big business league that participated in IPOs of state corporations. Although other owners of Sberbank manifest no selling plans, the business is evidently disposing of Rosneft stocks at large. Nearly all oligarchs that took part in Rosneft IPO have sold the stocks already.
The names of businessmen that bought Rosneft via its IPO of summer 2006 are no secret. Amid them are Oleg Deripaska, Roman Abramovich, Vladimir Lisin, Suleiman Kerimov, Alisher Usmanov, Filaret Galchev and Vladimir Potanin. Their actual ownership in Rosneft has never been officially disclosed. “The approximate size of the stake that they sold amounts to no less than $1 billion,” said a chief of investment bank that arranged the oil company’s IPO.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 21, 2007
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