MOSCOW, March 26 (RIA Novosti) – Shares in the main asset of Russian oil major TNK-BP plummeted almost 20 percent Tuesday afternoon on news that its parent company, Rosneft, planned to raise billions of dollars in loans from its recently acquired subsidiary.
By 2:51 p.m. Moscow time, TNK-BP Holding sagged by 18 percent to 39.2 rubles ($1.27) a share, compared with an overall 0.2 percent fall in the MICEX, or Moscow Exchange, stock index.
State-controlled oil giant Rosneft completed its acquisition of TNK-BP from BP and Russian billionaire shareholders last week to create the world’s largest publicly traded oil producer. Under the takeover deal, Rosneft has consolidated about 95 percent of TNK-BP Holding.
Rosneft announced on Tuesday that its board of directors had approved a deal to raise 152 billion rubles ($4.9 billion) and $4.8 billion in loans from TNK-BP subsidiaries. Multi-billion dollar loans from TNK-BP mean that its investors cannot count on hefty dividend payouts.
Rosneft bought TNK-BP from Britain’s BP and the AAR consortium. Under the deal, BP received a net payment of $12.5 billion in cash, including a TNK-BP dividend of $700 million, and an 18.5 percent stake in Rosneft. Together with its existing holdings, BP now controls a 19.75 percent stake in the Russian oil giant.
In a separate part of the deal, Rosneft paid $27.7 billion in cash to the AAR consortium of Soviet-born billionaires for their half of TNK-BP.
TNK-BP Holding’s stock has tended to fall since last year when Rosneft announced its takeover of the Russian-British joint oil venture, Russia’s third largest crude producer.
Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin’s statement late last year that the oil giant was not planning to buy out the stakes of minority shareholders in TNK-BP Holding has added to the company stock’s downward trend.
