Rosneft subsidiary buys Yukos's 9% stake in Rosneft
Russia's state-run oil company Rosneft [RTS: ROSN] has bought its 9.44% stake held by Yukos in the first auction to sell the bankrupt company's assets, the auction commission said Tuesday according to RIA Novosti.
The first lot acquired by RN-Razvitiye also included 12 promissory notes in the Yuganskneftegaz oil producing unit worth 3.558 billion rubles (about $136.8 million). The lot's initial price was slightly over 195.5 billion rubles (about $7.5 billion), with the bid increment of 260 million rubles (about $10 million), the auction commission said.
Rosneft's RN-Razvitiye offered 197.84 billion for the lot (about $7.6 billion), the auction commission said.
"We are satisfied with the auction results," said Nikolai Lashkevich, the press secretary of the Yukos bankruptcy manager.
Yukos, once Russia's largest oil company, was declared bankrupt August 1, 2006, after three years of litigation with tax authorities over the company's tax arrears.
Yukos, whose founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky is serving an eight-year prison term in Siberia after being convicted of fraud in May 2005, faces a total of more than 700 billion rubles (about $26.9 billion) in claims from creditors, Lashkevich said.
The funds raised at the auction could satisfy a substantial part of these claims, Lashkevich said.
The Yukos creditors' committee could discuss the issue of selling Samaraneftegaz and Tomskneft still in the bankrupt company's possession next Friday, Lashkevich said.
The price paid by Rosneft at the first auction for the sale of Yukos assets was fair, the company's representative said.
"We are satisfied with the auction results and consider this price [paid for the Yukos stake in Rosneft] to be fair," Vladimir Voyevoda said.
However, the chairman of the Yukos board of directors said the stake was sold at a price below the market value and criticized the results of the first auction to sell the bankrupt oil company's assets.
