Two years after the privatization sale of the Russia’s Rosneft, the deal is in news again. The deal was billed in order to prove that Russia is still open to business. The President of Russia, Valdimir Putin has even told the CEO of Rosneft, Igor Sechin that he wants to congratulate him for the deal.
The CEO of Rosneft had made an announcement stating that his company’s 19.5 percent stake will be owned by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and the trader of giant commodity, Glencore.
The privatization deal was worth 10.2 billion euro which equals to $11.57 billion. The deal was signed in order to replenish the coffers of Russia which were depleted by the decreasing prices of energy and the Western sanctions.
Certain officials of Russia had even hailed it as a proof that the country was still capable of attracting global investors despite the political isolation of Russia from the West which is growing each passing day.
But Reuters has gained information from about nine different sources that a bank which is owned by the state of Russia, VTB, had financed a very large part of this acquisition. The news has undermined its stated aim which was to bring foreign money into Russia.
According to the sources, the worth of the loan that the bank has given to the Qatari Sovereign wealth fund is somewhat around $6 billion. Though the news of any such transaction has been denied by the bank
VTB stated that it has not issued any loan to Qatar Investment Authority (referring to the Qatari sovereign wealth fund) and is not even planning to do so in order to make it capable of financing the acquisition.
However, the data of VTB for September which was published by the Central Bank of Russia showed that 434 billion roubles were loaned by the bank for a term period of three years to some unnamed foreign borrowers.
Source: Reuters, TheWallStreetReporter
