by Daan van der Schriek Rosneft and Gazprom will likely scoop up the stakes in Rosneft and Gazprom Neft, respectively, analysts said. While Yukos' 9.44 percent stake in Rosneft was valued at $7.33 billion as of Oct. 1, 2006, the starting price at the auction would be set at $6.87 billion, "a 6.7 percent discount to the valuation price and an even more impressive 25.6 percent discount to current market value for the stake," Alfa Bank wrote in a note to investors Wednesday.
Yukos' stake in Gazprom Neft was valued at $4.25 billion while the starting price at the auction is expected to be $4 billion -- a 6.3 percent discount on the valuation price and a 4.3 percent discount on current market value, Alfa Bank wrote.
Nikolai Lashkevich, spokesman for Yukos' court-appointed receiver, Eduard Rebgun, said he could not confirm which assets will be sold off first, or at what starting prices, before an official announcement by the creditors' committee. Such an announcement would probably come by the end of the week, Lashkevich said. He said earlier Wednesday that it would be published in Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Thursday, The Associated Press reported.
While the quoted starting prices for the Rosneft and Gazprom Neft stakes would be low compared with current market valuations, they are only starting prices and might go up during the auction, said Olga Danilenko, an analyst with Deutsche UFG.
Rosneft and Gazprom are the most serious bidders and the likely winners of the respective stakes, MDM Bank analyst Nadya Kazakova said.
A spokesman for Gazprom declined to comment Wednesday, while no one at Rosneft could be reached.
Alfa Bank on Wednesday assessed developments as positive for Rosneft, "which is likely to be the front-runner at the auction for its shares and hence could substantially benefit from the discrepancy between the stakes' market value and the auction price."
The bank assessed the news as neutral for Gazprom, which has less discount from which to benefit.
Yukos assets to be auctioned off include oil production units Tomskneft and Samaraneftegaz, five refineries, 1,100 gasoline stations and a 49 percent stake in Slovakian pipeline operator Transpetrol. Rosneft this week sent its strongest signal yet that it hoped to acquire Tomskneft and Samaraneftegaz. When asked whether Rosneft was planning to bid for the two units, Rosneft vice president Sergei Kudryashov said Monday: "We know better than anyone else how to run Samaraneftegaz and Tomskneft."
Rebgun last month valued Yukos' remaining assets at more than $22 billion. The company owes $27 billion to its creditors, mainly the Federal Tax Service and Rosneft.
The former general director of Samaraneftegaz, Pavel Anisimov, admitted in a Samara court Wednesday that he had taken part in tax evasion at the production unit, Gazeta Samara reported.
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