| At the meeting of YUKOS shareholders they preferred to talk about good things At yesterday's meeting of YUKOS shareholders, the company summed up the results of last year, which was the worst in its entire history. Now Mikhail Khodorkovsky's once-great oil empire is a steadily declining production enterprise whose refineries are loaded with crude from state-owned Rosneft. For which, by the way, YUKOS even recently received gratitude from the president of the state oil company Sergei Bogdanchikov. In the future, according to the first vice-president of YUKOS-RM Frank Rieger, “a further drop in production should be expected; this year’s strategy is aimed at keeping production at a level of more than 20 million tons.” Since the Russian authorities have not responded to a single call from YUKOS shareholders and executives to sit down at the negotiating table, the holding's managers could only recall old victories yesterday. After all, according to the results of last year, the company became the leader in oil production volumes in Russia. But its capitalization, which in the best times reached $30 billion, no longer even reaches $2 billion. However, the holding’s board of directors, headed by Viktor Gerashchenko, is not yet going to give up completely.
Mr. Gerashchenko sees a sign that YUKOS was the best and most promising Russian oil company in the fact that in the fourth quarter of 2003, one of the largest American companies was ready to buy up to 45% of the shares of the Russian holding for $45 billion. “Not I would like to name it specifically,” he said yesterday, speaking to a few minority shareholders gathered in the building of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. - Then the deal did not take place due to the fact that the main shareholders of YUKOS, who were supposed to sell their stake to her, were too keen on the merger with Sibneft. The readiness to buy YUKOS indicates that it fully complied with international standards.”
YUKOS's transparency was discussed several times yesterday. “YUKOS became more and more transparent, now it is so transparent that we do not see the company’s capital,” Mr. Gerashchenko joked sadly. It is interesting that YUKOS President Stephen Theede, who has been on the new board of directors of the company since yesterday, did not come to the meeting, but sent his greetings to the shareholders. Mr. Theede, who retained his post as Yukos manager, left Russia last fall after reports emerged that prosecutors were interested in him. In his letter, not for the first time, he called the sale of Yuganskneftegaz an expropriation, not forgetting to say that the production and financial results of the holding for the past year “look impressive.” Reading out the message from the company president, Mr. Gerashchenko hesitated only once. Having brought the phrase: “We continue to fulfill all obligations to our partners,” he immediately made a reservation: “Almost all obligations.”
However, although the YUKOS management does not recognize the state’s tax claims, it will nevertheless continue to pay them. “For all claims for four years (from 2000 to 2003 inclusive. - Ed. ) in a total amount of 583 billion rubles. the Yukos company paid 407.4 billion rubles, i.e. two-thirds of the tax debt,” said the head of the company’s board of directors. Mr. Gerashchenko assures that in the future his company does not intend to declare bankruptcy or self-liquidation. “YUKOS was going to hold a meeting of shareholders (at the end of last year - Ed. ) and announce self-liquidation, since when a company is liquidated, bailiffs step aside. However, this meeting was disrupted by Sibneft. They (the main owners of Sibneft - Ed. ) believed that this would prevent the divorce of our companies. They always declare their readiness for divorce, but for some reason they are not going to return the money for their jointly acquired property. It is probably expensive to finance not only British but also Russian football clubs. We need CSKA to win,” he added.
At yesterday's meeting, YUKOS planned to make changes to the charter, including changing the place of registration from Nefteyugansk, where Rosneft has been in business since the beginning of this year, to Moscow. As the head of the legal department of the oil holding, Rudolf Mkhitoryan, explained, the state company took away from YUKOS its main asset - Yuganskneftegaz, so it is simply “not very convenient for both holdings to be in the same place.” But a sufficient number of votes were not collected to change the charter, so YUKOS will have to endure such proximity at least until the next meeting of shareholders. Denis REBROV |
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