A. Galeev

Yesterday, most Russian shares continued to rise in price: on the classic RTS market, Norilsk Nickel added 2.7%, LUKOIL – 1.6%, and the RTS index rose by 2.15% – to 716.42 points. Gazprom shares on the Saint Petersburg Exchange (with settlements through RTS) rose in price by 2.3% at very high turnover – 3.35 billion rubles, and the company's capitalization fell just short of $70 billion.

Surgutneftegaz was initially positioned as a likely winner of the Yugansk tender, recalls Alexander Shokhin, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Renaissance Capital: “It needs Yugansk’s assets more and is closer, the company has money, and Surgutneftegaz is loyal to the Kremlin,” he reasons. In addition, selling a stake in Yugansk would be beneficial to Rosneft, which is trying to hold on to this asset, which Gazprom may now also lay claim to. “The risks associated with the proceedings in the American court have decreased, and now Gazprom may again become interested in Yuganskneftegaz. And Rosneft , by attracting new partners to Yugansk, will make it more difficult for Gazprom to obtain this asset,” Shokhin believes.

This is not the first time that Surgutneftegaz shares have “shot up” on rumors of major changes in the company. In April 2003, they grew by 76% (the RTS index by 17%), and they accounted for almost a third of the entire turnover of the RTS exchange – $197.7 million in a month. Experts were at a loss to guess what was happening with the shares of one of the largest Russian companies. Some talked about investors’ plans to buy up a large block of Surgutneftegaz shares in order to put their representative on the board of directors and achieve an increase in dividends. Others believed that Surgut was faced with an attempt at a hostile takeover. Alfa Bank indicated in one of its reports that an unknown share buyer could, through the courts, prohibit voting with “treasury” shares of Surgutneftegaz and seize control of the company from its CEO Vladimir Bogdanov, who called the jumps in his company’s shares speculative games. What actually happened to the Surgut shares remained unknown, and over the next two months they fell in price by 25%, losing half of their April gains.

But it was not they who led the growth, but Surgutneftegaz shares, which rose in price by 5%. The volume of transactions with these securities was also very high – almost $100 million on all trading platforms. For example, on the MICEX Stock Exchange, brokers traded these securities for 1.2 billion rubles – twice as much as last week. And the average turnover on them on the MICEX in 2004 was $30 million per day.

At the same time, traders did not find any objective reasons for such interest in Surgut securities. “There was a great demand for them on the London Stock Exchange, but my colleagues and I did not find any obvious reasons for this growth,” says Dmitry Kulyashenets from Renaissance Capital. “Surgut lagged behind the market for a long time, although the company did not upset investors with bad news, so investment funds decided to add Surgut securities to their portfolios,” says Alexander Zakharov, vice president of the sales department at UralSib FC. Since the beginning of the year, Surgutneftegaz shares have grown by 11%, LUKOIL by 15%, and the RTS index by 16.7%.

However, the issue is most likely not in the fundamental reasons. Head of the analytical department of Aton, Steven Dashevsky, connects the growth of Surgutneftegaz quotes with the information that appeared on the market that the company may receive or has already received a share in Yuganskneftegaz. “This seemed logical to us,” Dashevsky continues, “after all, representatives of Surgutneftegaz participated in the bidding for Yugansk, and it is obvious that the company may receive shares of the former subsidiary of YUKOS in exchange.”

A source familiar with the situation around Yuganskneftegaz told Vedomosti that these rumors are not unfounded. He said that Surgutneftegaz could receive 17% of Yugansk shares from Rosneft in exchange for $1.7 billion allocated to the future winner of the Yugansk auction, Baikalfinansgroup, for making a deposit. An employee of a large investment bank also heard about this.

Two Surgutneftegaz employees called these assumptions “logical.” The company “has long dreamed of becoming the operator of the Priobskoye field,” one of them notes. He believes it is no coincidence that his colleagues took part in the bidding for Yuganskneftegaz. “Surgutneftegaz should have received something for this,” he says.

None of Vedomosti's interlocutors called Surgut's purchase of a stake in Yuganskneftegaz a fait accompli. "We checked these rumors, but did not confirm them," says Zakharov.

Representatives of Surgutneftegaz, Rosneft and Gazprom declined to provide official comments.

“Surgut” took off on rumors