Oil companies merger is off
Russian oil companies Yukos and Sibneft have agreed to reverse their planned merger, effectively restoring the status quo that existed before they announced the deal to create the world’s fourth largest oil producer in April.
The sides signed a letter of intent in Moscow over the weekend to reverse the £6b (€8.5bn) merger, an unnamed source close to Sibneft told Dow Jones Newswires.
According to the Russian business daily Vedomosti, the deal reached during talks in London calls for Sibneft shareholders to return £1.76bn (€2.49bn) in cash and 26% of Yukos shares to the beleaguered company whose former chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky is in jail.
The Interfax news agency later issued a similar report, citing an unnamed source close to the shareholders of Sibneft, whose leading shareholder is Chelsea boss Roman Abramovich.
Vedomosti said that as an indication of the agreement on a peaceful solution to disagreements over the planned merger, Yukos was to vote against changing Sibneft’s charter at a Sibneft shareholder meeting today.
The merger was abruptly suspended last month on the day it was to be finalised, amid analyst speculation that Sibneft was pushing for control of the merged company – a demand Yukos core shareholders rejected.
Yukos, Russia’s largest oil producer, has been the target of a wide-ranging government probe that culminated with Khodorkovsky’s arrest on charges including tax evasion and fraud, and the subsequent freezing of about 40% of the company’s shares.
