Sistema still planning Bashneft IPO; won't shift MTS trade to Moscow - Yevtushenkov
MOSCOW. April 15 (Interfax) - AFK Sistema continues with its plans for a Bashneft IPO, even though recent political events have posed impediments to Russian companies getting onto the market.
"Yes, we still are [planning to secure listing for Bashneft]," Sistema's main owner Vladimir Yevtushenkov told the press in Moscow, without specifying a timeframe.
Asked to comment on First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov's remarks last week that Russian companies - in the face of Western political pressure - should give close consideration to re-registering on the Moscow Exchange , Yevtushenko said, "This [AFK Sistema and its most valuable asset, OJSC Mobile TeleSystems , de-listing on foreign exchanges] is not possible. There is not enough money [on the Russian stock exchange] to conduct de-listing. In order to do de-listing, about a dozen billion dollars are needed."
Asked about the possibility of partially shifting trade in MTS shares from New York to Moscow, Yevtushenko responded jocularly, "And what will that do? You can't be half pregnant."
Currently about 48% of MTS shares are in free float and the rest are held by the controlling shareholder, Sistema. About 37% of shares circulate on the New York Stock Exchange and 11% on the Moscow Exchange's A1 quotation list. So far in April, the biggest daily trading volume - 1 billion rubles - was registered on Friday, April 11, after the board of directors approved the dividend recommendation for 2013.
Sistema itself is listed on the London Stock Exchange (where about 19% of shares circulate) and on the Moscow Exchange (about 5.2%). Yevtushenkov owns about 64.18% of Sistema shares. The holding's ordinary shares were recently shifted from the B quotation list to A2, after which the company said the exchange's A1 and A2 lists would be merged, putting it on the exchange premier list and giving it access to new financing from investors, including pension funds, with assets totaling $118 billion.
