St-Petersburg. AFK Sistema (RTS: AFKS) may buy a part of the producing assets of RussNeft (RTS: RUSN) under an option for the same amount that it sold its 49% interest in the parent company, as Mikhail Gutseriev said to Interfax.
“A minor extra payment may be needed (to the amount of $1.2 billion – IF) either from their part or from our part. Let us say, $50 million. But the point is this”, he said.
According to Gutseriev, it is a civilized split of assets, whereas both stages of the deal will be subject to tax payments to the budget.
M. Gutseriev added that the deal was agreed with Sberbank (RTS: SBER) which owns 2% of RussNeft shares and is its major creditor. “Sberbank has given its approval. Nothing changes for them. Producing assets will be sold (to Sistema – IF) with the debt which will continue to be serviced”, he explained.
M. Gutseriev added that the deal with Sistema does not change the plans of RussNeft to redeem all the debts of the company by 2017.
Evaluation of RussNeft for the purposes of the deal was performed by Morgan Stanly. It was communicated earlier that AFK Sistema was selling its 49% interest in RussNeft for $1.2 billion to businessmen close to M. Gutseriev – Mikhail Shishkhanov and Felix Dlin.
At the same time, AFK Sistema got an option to buy interests in eight producing companies forming Ural group of RussNeft.
