| Trading in shares of the gas concern moves to the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange The conflict that flared up between the main trading platform for Gazprom shares - the Moscow Stock Exchange - and Gazprombank and the Depository and Settlement Union, which provide depository services for these operations (see the Vremya Novostei newspaper of June 28) , threatens to shift the main trading activity to Saint Petersburg. From July 9, at the initiative of the exchange and DRS, the trilateral agreement for depository services of Gazprom shares between Gazprombank, MFB and DRS will be terminated, and all securities of Gazprombank clients will not be admitted to trading. The reason is that from July 9, the exchange switches to trading using net settlements (i.e., fees will be charged only for securities that actually “settle” in the depository’s accounts at the close of trading). From this same day, the depository fee for recording and storing securities in the DRS will cease to be collected at all - the depository will live on money “from turnover”, i.e. share income with the exchange itself. Proposals to Gazprombank to make appropriate changes to the agreement were sent on June 8, but no positive response was received.
The conflict between the MFB, DRS and Gazprombank arose at a crucial moment for the Gazprom stock market. In the coming days, the working group on liberalizing the gas concern's stock market, led by First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Dmitry Medvedev, will finish working on a report to Vladimir Putin, which should determine the fate of the market.
Gazprombank believes that in this situation the reason for the sharp actions of the MFB - the bank's alleged refusal to service transactions based on net turnover - is far-fetched. “We agree with this and will move towards this. But we believe that this is not how it should be resolved,” Alexander Chernoivan, first deputy chairman of the board of Gazprombank, told the Vremya Novostei newspaper. According to him, to the exchange’s initial letter about changing the tripartite agreement with the MFB and RTS from 1997, the bank responded that, firstly, such a change in the rules must be agreed upon with the issuer and three other trading platforms (SPSE, Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg exchanges), and secondly, it was adopted after the approval of the report of the working group on liberalization of the Gazprom share market. In addition, Gazprombank also had technical complaints about the proposed version of the agreement. However, the response to this letter came in the form of a public announcement of the termination of the contract.
Gazprombank sees a solution not in concessions to the MFB, but in transferring trading to another site. As Alexander Chernoivan stated, in order to prevent trading in shares of one of the largest Russian issuers from stopping, consultations were held yesterday with leading market participants on the transfer of trading to the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange using the RTS remote terminal system (SPFB is one of the four Russian exchanges on which, by decree of Boris Yeltsin, trading in Gazprom shares is allowed). From a technical point of view, for this, a market participant only needs to be accredited to the SPSE. According to Mr. Chernoivan, the overwhelming majority of brokers expressed their readiness to work with Gazprom shares through the northern capital. This is not surprising: Gazprombank holds 9 billion Gazprom shares in service, compared to 30 million shares in the DRS. “We are informing the FCSM and Gazprom in detail about the current situation,” added Mr. Chernoivan. According to the Vremya Novostey newspaper, Gazprombank applied to the Federal Securities Commission with a request to revoke the DRS license. Elena GOSTEVA, Andrey DENISOV |
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