The story of how state capital quarreled with private capital

Yesterday, representatives of two companies with a significant share of state capital gave a rather sharp rebuke to representatives of large private capital. The reason was a conflict of interests.

Alexey Miller, chairman of the board of Gazprom, issued an ultimatum to TNK-BP production director Viktor Vekselberg regarding the development of the Kovyktinskoye field. Miller announced that the construction of a pipeline from Kovykta to China was impractical, there would be no production sharing agreement, and without Gazprom’s participation in the project, the TNK-BP subsidiary would lose its license for the field no later than 2006. As Kommersant writes, TNK-BP will not quarrel with the gas monopolist and, most likely, will accept Gazprom’s conditions.

And Valery Okulov, CEO of Aeroflot, after losing the tender to manage Sheremetyevo Airport, said that his company had begun developing a plan to move to “another Moscow airport hub.” Having lost the competition to the “daughter” of Alfa Group, the Alfa-Sheremetyevo company, Okulov called his home airport “hopelessly sick”, and a more successful competitor - “a notary invited to draw up a will in favor of the financiers.”

“Polit.ru” wondered whether these seemingly unrelated events are not a manifestation of a trend when companies receiving powerful state support feel so free and unpunished in the market that they allow themselves to harshly put pressure on competitors. Leading analysts at Zenit Bank Sergei Suverov and Troika-Dialog Company Evgeniy Gavrilenkov shared their opinions on this issue with Polit.ru.

According to Suverov, “there is a certain trend.” “It is noticeable that state-owned companies close to the authorities have become more confident in their abilities. And they use this confidence for specific purposes, talking more harshly with competitors to achieve their goals. In the case of Gazprom, this is not only a matter of yesterday, but also the case of the creation of a consortium with Surgutneftegaz and Rosneft." As for Aeroflot, according to Suverov, Okulov’s statement yesterday does not quite fit into this scheme. "Of course, Aeroflot is taking advantage of its advantage, but what happened yesterday was pure emotion. What Aeroflot will really strive for, taking advantage of its position, is to eliminate the possibility of private companies receiving royalties for international flights. That's what he will hinder, not wanting to share.”

Troika-Dialogue analyst Evgeny Gavrilenkov believes that “it is too early to talk about any trend.” “I would view these events as independent of each other. The statement regarding Aeroflot is clear: having lost the tender, Okulov had a desire to think about some other future for his company. Regarding Gazprom, I also would not draw far-reaching conclusions about the presence of a trend. The sample is too small.”