An interesting coincidence

The permanent court of arbitration in the Hague has ruled that Russia is to pay $50 billion in damages in the Yukos case. The company that gobbled up most of Yukos’ assets is Rosneft but the defendant in the case is Russia, which owns about 70% of Rosneft stock.

This puts the current market value of Russia’s share of Rosneft at slightly less than $47 billion, (un)surprisingly close to the $50-billion award. Note that this assumes a share price (1 GDR stands for one share) of $6.30 while Rosneft’s IPO price in 2006 was $7.55. At that level, the state’s share would be worth $56 billion so the Hague judgment world still make up 90% of it.

As a side note, BP owns 19.75% in Rosneft and the Russian government had planned to sell down to 50% plus one share, privatizing over 19% of the company.

Updated July 31. Bloomberg has noted the obvious, too, but I think I beat them to it.

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