Showdown in Moscow for BP and investors
Saturday, 28 June 2008
Catherine Belton, Neil Buckley and Ed Crooks
MIKHAIL Fridman, the baby-faced Russian tycoon, is on the warpath. Inside his loft-like office in the Moscow headquarters of Alfa Bank, Mr Fridman is planning to take on BP, the UK energy group, over the TNK-BP joint venture, in which he and three other Russian shareholders own 50 per cent.
"They thought we would be sleeping partners . . . They consider us to be no more than Russian oligarchs who will sell out," he says as papers lay strewn across his boardroom table tabling data, which he says shows TNK-BP's poor performance under BP-led management compared with its peers.
BP, which since 2003 has shared ownership of TNK-BP 50-50 with Mr Fridman and his partners in the AlfaAccess-Renova consortium, suspects his campaign is nothing more than an attempt to seize control.
TNK-BP is vital to BP's growth in reserves and production and losing its position in Russia would be a grievous blow.
BP has long maintained that it would be happy with a deal that gave it a minority stake in a Russian joint venture with Gazprom or Rosneft, the state-controlled companies. It has been talking to both of them: Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, met their respective chief executives in Russia in the second week of this month.
The value of such a deal is up for grabs, however. The state-controlled companies could buy the AAR stake, but they are unlikely to be willing to pay the market price of about $25bn (
MIKHAIL Fridman, the baby-faced Russian tycoon, is on the warpath. Inside his loft-like office in the Moscow headquarters of Alfa Bank, Mr Fridman is planning to take on BP, the UK energy group, over the TNK-BP joint venture, in which he and three other Russian shareholders own 50 per cent.
"They thought we would be sleeping partners . . . They consider us to be no more than Russian oligarchs who will sell out," he says as papers lay strewn across his boardroom table tabling data, which he says shows TNK-BP's poor performance under BP-led management compared with its peers.
BP, which since 2003 has shared ownership of TNK-BP 50-50 with Mr Fridman and his partners in the AlfaAccess-Renova consortium, suspects his campaign is nothing more than an attempt to seize control.
TNK-BP is vital to BP's growth in reserves and production and losing its position in Russia would be a grievous blow.
BP has long maintained that it would be happy with a deal that gave it a minority stake in a Russian joint venture with Gazprom or Rosneft, the state-controlled companies. It has been talking to both of them: Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, met their respective chief executives in Russia in the second week of this month.
The value of such a deal is up for grabs, however. The state-controlled companies could buy the AAR stake, but they are unlikely to be willing to pay the market price of about $25bn (