A leaked intelligence document issued by Spain's CNI spy agency in October warns that Russia is aggressively pursuing a plan to "monopolize access to energy supplies to Europe." The report validates what many analysts have been saying for a long time, namely that Moscow is using Russian energy companies to gain geo-strategic control over northern, central and southern Europe. Now Russia's largest independent oil company, Lukoil, is negotiating the purchase of a 30 percent stake in Repsol YPF SA, Spain's largest oil company. The deal, which is valued at 5 billion euros ($6.5 billion), calls for Lukoil to buy a 20 percent stake in Repsol from Sacyr Vallehermoso SA, a debt-laden Spanish construction company, and another 10 percent stake from La Caixa, a Catalan savings bank. Lukoil is now seeking financing in order to close the deal. News of the politically sensitive acquisition has come as a shock to many Spaniards, who now are fiercely debating the wisdom of giving effective control of their "national energy champion" to a Russian company. Analysts say the deal could lead to a full-scale takeover or break-up of Repsol, which has lagged rivals in profitability and in reserves growth in recent years. Under Spanish takeover law, a shareholder must launch an offer for the entire company once it passes the 30 percent threshold.
Now Russia's largest independent oil company, Lukoil, is negotiating the purchase of a 30 percent stake in Repsol YPF SA, Spain's largest oil company. The deal, which is valued at 5 billion euros ($6.5 billion), calls for Lukoil to buy a 20 percent stake in Repsol from Sacyr Vallehermoso SA, a debt-laden Spanish construction company, and another 10 percent stake from La Caixa, a Catalan savings bank. Lukoil is now seeking financing in order to close the deal.
News of the politically sensitive acquisition has come as a shock to many Spaniards, who now are fiercely debating the wisdom of giving effective control of their "national energy champion" to a Russian company. Analysts say the deal could lead to a full-scale takeover or break-up of Repsol, which has lagged rivals in profitability and in reserves growth in recent years. Under Spanish takeover law, a shareholder must launch an offer for the entire company once it passes the 30 percent threshold.
This is becoming a huge political deal in Spain and the Russia scaremongers in the Western™ press are having a field day. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
Lukoil is said to be in talks to acquire their combined 30% stake at a small fraction of the price they would have to pay in the open market
Well, this is plainly incorrect: There was a very detailed post at The Fistful of Euros. At the moment of their writing (Nov 23), Lukoil was offering something like 28 Euro/share while on Nov 21 Repsol was worth 13.61 on the open market. 14 Euro per share could be a fire sale price, but the offer is for twice that amount.
In general, the article strikes me as essentially racist. They try really hard to confuse the reader into thinking that Lukoil is state-owned, while in fact it's a private company, and included into the article for no reason a statement by Spanish Economy Minister Pedro Solbes who opposed a sale of Sacyr's Repsol stake to Gazprom (never heard of this deal). The Brussels Journal is clearly afraid of openly acknowledging that it's the Russian smell of money which they object to, and try to mask ethnic discrimination behind mythical state ownership and discounted price.
One of these days, a significant part of the European media will get hit by a huge class action anti-discrimination suit. I hope all awards would go into improving health services in Russia.
Moscow is using Russian energy companies to gain geo-strategic control over northern, central and southern Europe.
Question: what's not part of "northern, central and southern" Europe? Hmmm... some offshore financial centers with no energy companies of their own? In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
