"Don't believe rumors. When it comes to the selloff, we'll tell you everything there is to know," Mr. Gref told a press conference Thursday.
In late July, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov signed a decree that the government's 7.59% stake in Lukoil should be auctioned off to a single bidder. In all, 64 million ordinary Lukoil shares will be put up for sale, with the face value at 0.025 roubles per piece ($1 approximately 29.23 roubles).
Kirill Tomashchuk, Acting Director of the Federal Property Management Agency, has told RIA Novosti that the agency will announce the starting price for the stake in mid-August, with the auction to be held one month afterward.
And agency spokesman Vladimir Zelentsov has said that the 7.59% stake in Lukoil will be offered for sale at a market price, to be set by an independent evaluator. According to him, the starting purchase price will be higher than that quoted by the government-36.758 billion roubles. This is the price threshold, he explained.
As the auction is going to be an open one, the Lukoil stake will in all probability be sold off at a price far higher than the starting price, Mr. Zelentsov added.
A source close to the Russian government has told RIA Novosti that the Lukoil stake will be sold at no less than $1.8 billion. "This is today's market price of the government stake," he said.
According to Mr. Gref, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry will try to make a decision on the mode of selling a government-owned stake in Svyazinvest by September.
Svyazinvest features on the 2005 privatization schedule adopted at a Cabinet session in late July. Back then, the Economics Minister said that the mode of privatizing this communications company would be determined within a month's time.
Mr. Gref said earlier that there was no decision just yet on the size of the Svyazinvest stake to be put up for sale. Options currently under discussion include 25%, 50%, and 75% stakes, the minister reported.
"An ad hoc group has been set up, to work on a technique for privatizing Scyazinvest. It includes representatives of a number of ministries," Mr. Gref said. As he sees it, government control over conventional communications operators (Svyazinvest is the controlling shareholder in major conventional communications companies of Russia) undermines their competitiveness vis-a-vis mobile communications operators.
