The trading session of the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange opened with reduction, the stock index being 628.9 points that is 1.13% lower than that on the closing of the previous trading session.
In the first 15 minutes of the session YUKOS shares took a 9% plunge, other blue chips lost from 0.73% (Surgutneftegas) to 1.42% (RAO Russia's UES). By 11.00 Moscow time the decrease of quotations became slower.
The main reason of the plunge is the media reports on alleged sale of 76.8% of Yuganskneftegas' shares with the starting price of $4 billion. "Against the background of the news, YUKOS' ADR quotations were 10% lower on the closing than the share prices in the Russian trading system", say Olma experts. They assess the external background to be moderately negative - earlier the U.S. indices went significantly down due to the new peak of the world oil prices.
Experts of Zerich Capital Management regard the information that the 77% Yuganskneftegas shareholding can be sold for only $3-4 billion as an obvious negative. "It can not be ruled out that at the end Yuganskneftegas can be taken over by Gazpromneft, and the company "close to Gazprom" will have the chance to participate in the reform of the Russian power industry, in particular, of Mosenergo", analysts comment on the mass media reports.
Earlier, chairman of YUKOS board Steven Thede stated that the company had received Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein's report on estimating the worth of Yuganskneftegas and abstained for the time being from comments before detailed analysis.
He pointed out that the preliminary analysis of the bank's report showed availability of various scenarios of estimating Yuganskneftegas' shares, while official representatives of the government had been given an unambiguous estimate of the company at $10.4 billion.
Mr. Thede also said that the Russian Federation Law "On Enforcement Proceedings" ruled out priority sale of main production assets for settling tax claims if alternative options of repaying the debt are available, and the company informed the Russian government on such alternative options.
