Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
FFDH eom
After devouring Yukos, Rosneft is hungry for cash
By Miriam Elder Moscow TimesPublished: September 4, 2007
MOSCOW: Standing just across the river from the Kremlin, Rosneft's headquarters lies shrouded in scaffolding.
The building's upgrade reflects the changes within as Rosneft acclimatizes to its new status as the country's largest oil company, following its purchase earlier this year of the remaining fields and production units that once belonged to bankrupt oil firm Yukos.
The shopping spree lifted its production to more than two million barrels per day, but also left the company heavily in debt, potentially affecting its capacity to undertake future projects as it approaches a debt market reeling from the global liquidity crunch.
"The markets have been difficult," Peter O'Brien, Rosneft's vice president for finance, said in a recent interview in his second-floor office, as yet untouched by the renovation work.
Rosneft's attempt to pay down part of its $25 billion debt to financial institutions through a $5 billion bond issue failed in July, when it was postponed just after the completion of an international roadshow because of market volatility.
Today in Business
Bits of Concorde nostalgia up for saleIKB expects €700 million loss from credit crunchBush calls for goal to reduce emissions
"When we went out, it was the start of it," O'Brien said, referring to the instability that shook global markets as the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis began to bite. "It's been very difficult, and it's starting to look a little bit better now."
Gazprom, state-owned but laden with more than $40 billion in debt, also postponed a bond sale in its Gaz Capital unit in August amid market jitters.
The lack of cash in international markets, in part, has prompted Rosneft to look closer to home, opting to issue ruble-denominated bonds by the end of the year, O'Brien said.
The issue, rumored to be for 45 billion rubles, or $1.76 billion, has yet to be approved by the company's board.
"These market conditions are bad and they're not that desperate," said Al Breach, the chief strategist at UBS, referring to Rosneft. "Now they have to look for other sources of funding. Going local will partially enable that."
"They're a very singular case, with sponsorship from the state that has helped them be able to raise capital," Breach said.
Rosneft raised $11 billion through an initial public offering in July 2006, reducing the state's share to 75.16 percent. The company has no plans to issue additional shares anytime soon, O'Brien said.
Rosneft aims to have a ratio of debt to Ebitda - earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization - of one to one by the end of 2010.
The company spent more than $25 billion acquiring Yukos assets in a round of bankruptcy auctions this year that effectively dismantled what was once the country's largest oil company. It took huge loans from a consortium of Western banks to cover the cost.
But with Yukos's court-appointed receiver declaring Rosneft the bankrupt firm's largest creditor after the Federal Tax Service, it also recouped about $11 billion from the auction proceeds .
It also retrieved a 9.44 percent stake that Yukos had held in the firm, which, at Rosneft's current $80 billion market capitalization, is worth around $8 billion.
O'Brien said Rosneft would probably use most of the stake to fund further mergers and acquisitions, saving some of it to pay off more debt, potentially in the form of convertible bonds.
O'Brien denied recently revived speculation that Rosneft was seeking to take over Surgutneftegaz, the country's fourth-largest oil producer, which is estimated to be sitting on $16 billion in cash.
"It's not being discussed," he said.
Some analysts have speculated that the Kremlin-friendly oligarch Oleg Deripaska was roped in by the state to buy the country's seventh-largest oil producer, Russneft, which is struggling under the weight of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax claims. Its former president, Mikhail Gutseriyev, was recently placed on an Interpol wanted list after fleeing the country to escape what he has called politically motivated charges against him.
The campaign against Gutseriyev and Russneft has prompted comparisons with Yukos, which was felled by more than $30 billion in back tax claims and the jailing of its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Khodorkovsky accused Igor Sechin, Putin's deputy chief of staff and chairman of Rosneft's board, of orchestrating the campaign against him.
Rosneft has now gobbled up most of Yukos's assets, growing from a middling oil concern into the country's largest oil company mainly through its purchase of Yukos's largest production units, Yuganskneftegaz, Tomskneft and Samaraneftegaz. Absorbing those acquisitions will take up much of Rosneft's attention as it prepares to go global and challenge the likes of Shell and BP.
"It's clear to us that we need to spend the next year or two focusing on successfully integrating recent acquisitions and improving efficiency," O'Brien said.
"We expect Russia next year to move to a more proactive state phase - out of the acquisitions phase and into the exploration phase. The state companies will be leading that," said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at UralSib. "Rosneft is going to have to raise a lot more cash."
It is a strange situation when someone wins an illegal auction and comes to you in advance and tries to grease the skids."
September 6, 2007 11:10 PM ET Investors made backdoor Yukos approachadvertisement
Article tools E-mail this article Print-friendly version Discuss this articleRecent investing news3Com deal faces security scrutinyDollar sinks as gold hits 27-year highINGDirect steps in as US bank collapsesWall St weaker amid economic dataEurope falls in cautious session
All Financial Times newsA group of western investors that bought the final set of Yukos assets, which included Dutch unit Yukos Finance BV, approached the oil group's former management to obtain assurances about the assets just days before the bankruptcy auction, former Yukos management said.
"We've made it clear for the past several weeks that this auction is totally illegal," said Bruce Misamore, Yukos's former chief financial officer and former director of Yukos Finance BV.
"It is a strange situation when someone wins an illegal auction and comes to you in advance and tries to grease the skids."
US real estate company Monte Valle bought the last lot of Yukos assets on August 15 for $305m via a former unit of Rosneft, the Russian oil group.
Mr Misamore and two other Yukos executives, David Godfrey and Daniel Feldman, told the Financial Times that the group of investors behind the Monte Valle bid included a representative of Moscow investment bank Renaissance Capital and another from US hedge fund VR Capital.
They claimed that two members of the group, Renaissance Capital vice-president Bob Foresman and VR Capital president Richard Deitz, had called to ask them to unwind the legal attachments protecting the assets from the bankruptcy sale, saying that in return, state-run Rosneft would drop its creditors' claims on the Dutch holding.
Mr Feldman said Mr Foresman had called him two days before the sale, "to know if there was a way to make a deal that would provide them with comfort".
"He called the day before the auction and said you have to understand if we can work out a compromise you can come back and work in Russia." Mr Feldman left Russia in February, fearing arrest.
The claims could not be fully verified: Mr Foresman declined to comment. Mr Deitz said he did not recall all the details of his conversation with Mr Godfrey.
Mr Deitz said he had "never in his life" met with Rosneft, while Monte Valle owner Stephen Lynch also said he had no talks with Rosneft or the authorities prior to the sale. The allegations are the latest twist in a bankruptcy process marred from the outset by claims it has been rigged in favour of Rosneft.
The oil group snapped up most of Yukos's remaining production units and refineries at a knockdown price after rivals bowed out just minutes into the sales.
The Dutch subsidiary, which holds $1.5bn in cash proceeds from the sale of Yukos's stake in a Lithuanian refinery and a 49 per cent stake in Slovak pipeline operator Transpetrol, is still at the centre of a complex legal wrangle for control between the Yukos Finance BV former directors, Yukos's liquidator and Rosneft.
Yukos Finance BV's former management claim that while court proceedings are in train the buyers of the Rosneft unit have no title to the Dutch assets.
Copyright 2007 Financial Times
20.09.07 Rosneft to Set about Former YUKOS Oil Refineries
MOSCOW, September 20. /FIS/. At present, the most serious questions for Rosneft in oil refining is the reconstruction of the old assets, which it purchased during the sell-out of the assets of the bankrupt oil company YUKOS. Rosneft's Vice President Dmitriy Bogdanov said that the company is soon to increase the depth of refining at the company's oil refineries to 90-95% from 66%.
Very nice of you to give her a break!!
1200 for me.
It's all about TECH TODAY!!
Fun Board not a booooring one for sure!!! I'd buy more stock just to BS around>>> hahhaha
Not selling here gonna LET HER RIDE!! Please don't shooot the horse yet!
u sold urself short?
Don't feel sorry for the guy!! it's the PINKIES!! and it'll probably goooo up!!
TOOO MARSSSS!!!
I want my 10.00 hit!!!
AGREE!
Waitless u mean Sexless lol just playing!
better not passed out someone has to push that Sell button!! lol
That's what I'm hoping!
Thanks!
How could they be short!! I thought there wazzz billions of share's out there>>>>>
There goes IHUB!!
Posted by: Boodaddy
In reply to: None Date:9/26/2007 2:49:36 PM
Post #of 14552
NEWS JUST OUT......
SEC NEWS Alert: Read this, right off the wires.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/sec-publish-data-help-investors/story.aspx?guid={4E44A215-CC29....
SEC tool aims to help investors avoid scams
By Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch
Last Update: 1:59 PM ET Sep 26, 2007
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Regulators are planning to unveil a new tool designed to help investors avoid questionable solicitations by unregistered companies, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday.
Through its Pause program -- short for Public Alert: Unregistered Soliciting Entities -- the agency will publish factual information on its Web site about unregistered companies that solicit investments. Those named have been the subject of complaints from investors and foreign securities regulators, the SEC said.
The SEC will take comments about the proposed program for 30 days.
Before posting information about the companies, SEC staff will have determined that there is either no U.S. registered securities firm with the company's name or that there is a registered firm with the same name but solicitations are coming from unrelated people.
Another list will name fictitious government agencies and organizations referred to by entities that are the subject of complaints, the SEC said.
"This encourages all investors to pause and determine whether an entity is properly registered with the SEC or located in the United States as claimed," said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, in a statement.
"Ferreting out operators of boiler rooms and secondary advance-fee schemes that prey on innocent investors is a priority of this commission," Cox said.
The SEC says that a large number of investor complaints concern solicitations from entities that represent themselves as being inside the U.S. when in fact they operate outside the country.
Robert Schroeder is a reporter for MarketWatch in Washington.
After we sell at 1.00 or 10.00 lol
Pretty much!! This zucks!! what are we going to do with medical stuff? at least with radio we could of gone like xm or something.
not new just BACK!!
Don't know I emailed them several times and no respond wondering if they themselves might of invested in this POS and now are trying to get something back.
tooo bad it did not hit 1.00
it wazzzzzzzz!
well there goes IHUB!!! lol
spread the word Ginseng increases the sex drive for women!! my wife told me she read it in a prevention mag.
Have you read that new book by John Grisham ? Playing for Pizza? it is goood and much better then playing this baby.
Frank is probably Francine by now!! lol
Boy is Frank in deeeep do do
Time to go play some blackjack...be back later.
adrenaline...adrenaline.
that's just about right!!
I believe we all did!! eturd kept some of mine!! so now I'm just trying to break even...ahhhh what the hell maybe some kind of miracle profit lol
Here she goooes again!! weeeeeeeeeeeeee
MODR Won't be long before she BLOWS her OIL!!