Dramatic Close To Yukos Auction
Confusion was the order of the day late last week as the Russian authorities
went ahead with their planned auction of Yukos's key production unit,
despite the fact that the oil firm has filed for Chapter 11 protection in the
United States. A mystery shell company called Baikal Finance won the auction on Sunday with a $9.37 billion bid for Yukos's most valuable asset, Yuganskneftegaz. Tver-registered Baikal Finance Group won the auction with a bid $503 million above the minimum after state energy giant Gazprom, the clear favorite and only other contestant, declined to raise its bid. The announcement on Friday that the consortium of Western banks which
were to back Gazprom's bid for the Yuganskneftegaz unit
had decided to withdraw their loan offer following the Houston bankruptcy court's issuance of a 10-day injunction prohibiting the sale, left Gazprom without a ready source of finance for a higher bid. It is supposed that the banking consortium
will wait until the Houston court reaches a decision on the way forward for
Yukos and its creditors to decide whether to grant the loan, if it turns out still to be needed. The Russian government sought to auction off the Yugansk unit in order
to reclaim some of the $27.5 billion that it alleges Yukos owes in back taxes. Commentators in Moscow suppose that Baikal Finance is somehow linked to Gazprom or the Russian Government, but other possibilities are being mooted. .
|
|
IMPORTANT NOTICE: TAX-NEWS.COM has taken reasonable care in sourcing and presenting the information contained on this site, but accepts no responsibility for any financial or other loss or damage that may result from its use. In particular, users of the site are advised to take appropriate professional advice before committing themselves to involvement in offshore jurisdictions, offshore trusts or offshore investments. All materials on this site copyright TAX-NEWS.COM 1999 to 2007. Contact us for further information.