>Cool! Peter, you made it to India! ;)
What's your take (and Peter's) on the following news report on Gazprom's take over of Sibneft? Is it all part of Putin's retirement plans? -:)
Ulhas
Business Standard
Saturday, October 1, 2005
Gazprom to take over Sibneft
$13.1 billion deal to be the largest takeover in Russian history
FT Reporters / London September 29, 2005
Gazprom, Russia’s state-controlled natural gas monopoly, on Wednesday signed a deal to take over Sibneft, the Russian oil group, in a deal valued at $13.1 billion.
As part of the largest takeover deal in Russian history, Gazprom will acquire the 73 per cent of Sibneft owned by Roman Abramovich’s Millhouse Capital. The move will take Gazprom’s stake to 76 per cent, giving it outright control.
The deal marks the further consolidation of energy assets in the hands of the Russian state. Sibneft will be the second oil company to move back under state control. Last year Rosneft, the state oil company, bought the largest part of Yukos oil company.
The fortunes of Abramovich, Russia’s richest man and the owner of Chelsea Football Club, contrast with the misfortune of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former owner of Yukos, who has been sentenced to nine years in prison.
The deal marks the second time Abramovich had sold Sibneft in two years. In 2003 he sold Sibneft to Yukos, receiving $3 billion in cash as part of the deal. That deal was unwound following the prosecution of Khodorkovsky. However, the $3 billion was never paid back and Yukos still controls 20 per cent of Sibneft.
Gazprom’s planned acquisition of Sibneft is part of the gas monopoly’s effort to transform itself into a global energy company.
Sibneft’s reserves amounted to some 4.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent in 2003. The group produced around 2bn cubic metres of gas per year and 31.4 million tonnes of oil. Of the oil output, mostly from Western Siberia, some 40 per cent is exported for sale at prices well in excess of those available in the state-regulated domestic market.