D.Grishkin

What the state will sell

President Dmitry Medvedev has approved the proposals of Vladimir Putin's government to expand the privatization program, said the head of state's aide Arkady Dvorkovich. Medvedev ordered their preparation in June at a forum in St. Petersburg.

The government proposes to supplement the program with 22 major assets (see the figure in the appendix). The state must completely withdraw from the capital of 14 companies by 2017, in six of them - Rosneft, RusHydro, OZK, Zarubezhneft, the united Rostelecom and Alrosa - it will retain a "golden share". In infrastructure companies - Russian Railways, Transneft and FKS - it was decided not to sell even a blocking stake to private investors. Instead of privatizing the MRSK Holding, its subsidiaries will be sold from 2012.

The privatization of Rosneft may begin as early as 2012, the secretariat of First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov reported. Earlier, the Ministry of Economic Development said that the sale of 4.1% of FSK, 7.97% of RusHydro, 25% of Sovcomflot, 10% of VTB and 100% of OZK was also planned for 2012.

For now, these are all just plans, says a government official: perhaps the government will retain the "golden share" in a smaller number of companies; everything will depend on the recommendation of the sellers, whom the government will select. According to the Ministry of Economic Development, the new plan will allow the treasury to earn about 1 trillion rubles annually from privatization. The figure is preliminary; no official assessment of the assets being sold has been conducted, says a department official.

The market will easily digest such sales, Yulia Tseplyaeva from BNP Paribas is sure, the plan is quite realistic. This is not such a serious reduction in the state sector, she notes, what is important is who controls the financial flows. In addition, it is not clear whether privatization will continue after March 2012 in the same volume, Tseplyaeva concludes.

The government is preparing to expand the privatization program