The Moscow Arbitration Court has extended oil company YUKOS’ bankruptcy manager Eduard Rebgun's powers for another three months, although he had asked for six. Some of the creditors supported him, but not state-owned Rosneft. During this period, Rebgun hopes to sell the remainder of YUKOS’s assets and settle its debts, as well as finding over $10 billion worth of company assets, which prosecutors claim YUKOS’s top managers took abroad. Otherwise, Rebgun says, minority shareholders will be left empty-handed.

Rebgun told RBC Daily yesterday that he had asked the auditing company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the Prosecutor General’s Office to give him YUKOS’s financial documents. Using documents provided by PwC, Rebgun established that YUKOS’s Armenian subsidiary YUKOS SIC Investment had US $11.5 billion in 2003, which has since disappeared.

“YUKOS’s shareholders received $1.734 billion as dividend payouts for 2003, and the rest disappeared. I want to know where the money went, and get it back to the bankrupt company’s property,” he said. The company, which was included in YUKOS’s 18th bankruptcy auction to be held on August 8, was “an empty shell” and did not have the money, Rebgun stressed. Quoting data from the Prosecutor General’s Office, he said YUKOS had used a similar scheme with its Dutch subsidiary.

In August 2006, the Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case against four of YUKOS’s top managers, including Steven Theede, David Godfrey, Bruce Misamore and Tim Osborn, accusing them of misappropriation, embezzlement, and money laundering under Articles 160 and 174 of the Russian Criminal Code. On August 17, 2006, the Prosecutor General’s Office said the four had been charged with the misappropriation of shares in more than 20 YUKOS affiliates controled by its Dutch subsidiary, as well as over $10 billion in assets, Eurobonds, shares in foreign companies, portfolio investments in various foreign funds and cash in trust funds and foreign banks.

The Prosecutor General’s Office has not reported on the case over the past year. Yesterday, its representative refused to comment on the issue, saying the information around the investigation was confidential. Tim Osborn, the Managing Director at Group Menatep, told RBC Daily that he was unaware of the $10 billion in assets, and did not understand what was behind the conclusions made by Rebgun and the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Valery Nesterov at Troika Dialog and Artem Konchin at ATON investment group hardly believe Rebgun will find the money, which means that YUKOS’s minority shareholders are unlikely to receive anything once the bankruptcy procedure is over. According to Rebgun, the bankrupt company’s property is worth $32.5 billion, $15.8 billion of which has already been paid. If YUKOS’s bankruptcy auctions scheduled for August 8 and 15 are held successfully and raise the starting prices, another $1.48 billion will be added to the bankrupt’s property. Meanwhile, the company owes $26.025 billion to its creditors. There’s also a $5 billion reserve fund to pay on court judgments.

The company is short $7.8 billion, which can be reduced to $2.2 billion if the above-mentioned reserve is taken into account. Given the situation, there is little hope for YUKOS’s shareholders to get their money back, Rebgun concluded.

Source: RosBusiness Consulting

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