Buying big state co. stock from minority holders counterproductive - Putin
MOSCOW. May 31 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin does not see the sense in buying stock in major resource-extracting companies from minority holders.
Asked about the proposal offered by Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov that the resource-production sector be nationalized at the State Council on Friday, Putin pointed out that controlling stakes in such companies as oil major Rosneft , gas giant Gazprom , and oil pipeline company Transneft are in the state's hands.
"To buy from our minority [holders] their stakes, even if they are not one or two, but five, ten, fifteen, twenty percent, to raise for them the level of bank rates on credits - what would the outcome be. I think this is a so-called counterproductive move," the president said.
