A government official told Vedomosti that the Russian Federal Property Fund received a decision from court bailiffs yesterday to auction off 100% of Yuganskneftegaz. A newspaper source familiar with the DrKW findings said the figure of $10.4 billion does feature in the bank's report, but it reflects "the worst-case scenario." A Vedomosti source in the Kremlin does not rule out that this evaluation appeared to "test public opinion".
The response, however, was not slow in coming. The bailiffs' plans to sell Yugansk at two-thirds of the price expected by market players sent Yukos shares down 7.6%. "The market was very disappointed," says Steven Dashevsky, an analyst with Aton, an investment company. He believes that ministry officials took the figure of $10.4 billion out of context.
In the view of the Kremlin source, Yukos "should be pleased that it is being allowed to pay off [its debts], because it failed to find any money of its own or take out loans against [oil] inventories."
However, Yukos is of the opposite opinion. "We do not have the appraiser's report, and could not make any sense out of the Ministry's contradictory statement," says Yukos press secretary Alexander Shadrin, who was indignant that court bailiffs told Yukos nothing about either the evaluation or the upcoming sale of Yuganskneftegaz.
