Translated material
Has Gutseriev surrendered?
Russneft's problems may be solved by Oleg Deripaska
The press services of Basic Element and RussNeft yesterday categorically denied rumors that Oleg Deripaska’s company was buying Mikhail Gutseriev’s company. Representatives of the press services emphasized that the companies are not even negotiating about this.Meanwhile, Vremya Novostey's sources confirm the rumors circulating in the market. A senior official familiar with Mr. Deripaska's business says the deal is "almost true," and a source close to Mr. Gutseriev said he is selling 100% of RussNeft to Basic Element. . “The companies will officially announce this before the end of July,” the source explained. According to him, Mr. Gutseriev himself has already informed his colleagues about the upcoming sale, as well as that he is leaving the oil business. Another source says he wouldn't be surprised if Oleg Deripaska partners with Suleiman Kerimov .
If the deal does take place, then, obviously, for Mr. Gutseriev it will be of a forced nature. Last fall, RussNeft unexpectedly started having problems with the authorities . In November, the Prosecutor General's Office opened several criminal cases regarding illegal entrepreneurship against two subsidiaries of Russneft - Ulyanovskneft and Nafta Ulyanovsk. They were accused of exceeding oil production limits in 2003-2004 and receiving 2.7 billion rubles as a result. illegal profits. At the beginning of this year, the Investigative Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs opened a criminal case into RussNeft’s failure to pay taxes on a particularly large scale. In May, Mr. Gutseriev was formally charged and ordered not to leave . At the same time, rumors began to spread about a possible sale of the company. True, Mr. Gutseriev himself denied these rumors in every possible way. “The Prosecutor General’s Office brought many cases against me, but, as you can see, they didn’t succeed,” he said in May at a meeting at the Ministry of Natural Resources on the development of Eastern Siberia.
There were reasons for such self-confidence. In 2002, Mr. Gutseriev, by decision of the government (and according to unofficial data, on the recommendation of the president), was dismissed from his public position - president of the Russian-Belarusian company Slavneft. As they said, the Kremlin was unhappy that in the presidential elections in Ingushetia he supported his own brother as opposed to the candidate supported by Vladimir Putin. However, having enlisted the support of some high-ranking officials, the entrepreneur, a few days after his resignation, tried to fight to take his previous office and position. He didn't succeed, but he got away with it quite well. Soon he created Russneft, which became his main business, and moved to the office previously occupied by Slavneft.
In Russneft, as the entrepreneur himself admitted, he owned 70% of the shares, the rest belonged to his family. For four years, Mr. Gutseriev actively bought up for his company all the more or less profitable oil production and oil refining assets put up for sale. As a result, over several years, RussNeft’s production increased from zero to 17 million tons of oil per year. Last year, the company managed to acquire two oil refineries - Orsky and Krasnodar, as well as about 90 gas stations, 60 of which are located in Moscow. Conflicts with the authorities were limited to the fact that Russneft laid claim to some assets that were of interest to state-owned companies (the same Transpetrol that Gutseriev tried to buy out before the official bankruptcy of YUKOS).
However, in June, Russneft was sued by the Federal Tax Service , accusing the company of tax fraud when selling shares. According to the Federal Tax Service, Russneft divided its shares into several packages and passed them through numerous purchase and sale chains. In its statement of claim, the Federal Tax Service demanded that all RussNeft shares be transferred to state income. As a result, on June 19, the court seized all shares of the company as an interim measure, which is still in effect. And yesterday, the Moscow Arbitration Court made another decision not in favor of the oil company, recognizing as legal the Federal Tax Service’s demand to recover about 3.4 billion rubles from RussNeft. ($134 million) tax debt.
Apparently, this had an effect on Mr. Gutseriev. As Vremya Novostey's interlocutor told yesterday, despite loud denials, he had already been choosing a buyer for RussNeft since the end of last year. At the same time, the head of Russneft rejected all proposals for the exchange of assets.
Selling the company to an entrepreneur who has no conflicts with the authorities is apparently the best solution for Mr. Gutseriev. However, in the current situation it is unlikely that the price can be too high - any buyer would want to receive a discount.
Oleg Deripaska is, to put it mildly, not the biggest player in the oil business. He owns the United Oil Company, which unites the Afipsky Refinery with a capacity of 2 million tons, two production companies Kubanneft-Resources (oil reserves of about 5 million tons) and Samarainvestneft (reserves - 14 million tons) and the trading company Vai -Guarantee". Russneft cannot be called a very profitable acquisition. Its mining assets are geographically scattered, many of them low-profit. Its oil refineries are among the oldest in Russia. So it is quite difficult to build a balanced and highly efficient business on the basis of RussNeft. But it is unlikely that for the buyer, no matter who it is, business arguments will be of decisive importance.