Gazprom Neft Makes Sibir Takeover Bid

(Moscow Times) - Gazprom Neft agreed to a takeover offer for midsized oil company Sibir Energy, Sibir said on Tuesday, in the state's first big play for the assets of indebted tycoons.

Gazprom Neft, Russia's fifth-largest oil producer, extended its 500 pence-per-share offer to all outstanding shares in the London-listed company, valuing it at $3.07 billion.

The offer excluded major shareholders: indebted oil and real estate tycoon Shalva Chigirinsky, his partner Igor Kesayev and the City of Moscow.

Gazprom Neft gained a foothold in Sibir, a producer of 80,000 barrels per day of Siberian crude, in a bidding war with larger rival TNK-BP, paying a 70 pence premium to the rival offer for minority stakes, and it has since brought its stake to 27.5 percent.

A successful bid to consolidate Sibir would boost crude oil output by 12 percent and refining capacity by 25 percent at expansionist Gazprom Neft, which bought Italian assets from Chevron this year, as well as Serbian refiner NIS.

The oil arm of the world's largest gas producer has said it is seeking to rival the likes of ExxonMobil or BP in oil.

"My feeling is that Gazprom Neft is the most aggressive company in the oil industry right now," a source close to the deal said.

Sibir said in a statement that Gazprom Neft had proposed a cash offer for the entire company, excluding shares owned by Bennfield Limited, Central Fuel and the Bank of Moscow.

Bennfield represented the holdings of Kesayev and Chigirinsky, with a stake of about 47 percent split between them.

The two men were forced to put up their stakes in Sibir as collateral with Sberbank, which helped them meet credit payments, and have been reported to be insisting on a change of ownership at Sibir.

The city of Moscow, with a political interest in stable fuel supplies from Sibir's stake in the Moscow refinery, owns 18 percent through Central Fuel Co. and is seen as an unlikely seller.

Last week, Chigirinsky won a court order barring any transaction with his Sibir stake.

Sibir is suing Chigirinsky, who abandoned his plan to build Europe's largest skyscraper in Moscow when credit markets slammed shut, demanding that he return $400 million advanced to him in a failed effort to sell his Russian property portfolio to Sibir.

Russian media have reported that Kesayev has agreed to sell his 23.3 percent to Gazprom Neft.

Sibir said it could not guarantee that Gazprom Neft would not seek its delisting if it acquired 75 percent of Sibir.

The source close to the deal said, however, that Gazprom Neft was mopping up the last of the minority holdings in the company.

"They are effectively taking the company private," the source said.

- Copyright 2009, The Moscow Times. All rights reserved.

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