05 January 2010, 17:00
Gutseriev returns control over "Russneft" for USD 600 million
On January 4, structures of businessman Oleg Deripaska sold the control over 100 percent of shares of the oil company "Russneft" back to the structures of its founder - former head of the "Russneft" and a native of Ingushetia Mikhail Gutseriev. This was reported by a source close to one of the parties of the deal.
The fact that the "Russneft" company bought by Oleg Deripaska in 2007 for 3 billion US dollars would get back to its initial owner became known last November.
Sergey Babichenko, representative of Deripaska's "Basic Element", could not make any comments on the transaction with the "Russneft", while the attempts to contact any representatives of the En+ (structure of the "Bazel", which operated the "Russneft") or Gutseriev himself in the evening on January 4 failed, as the "Vedomosti" writes.
However, a source of the edition told that Gutseriev paid 600 million US dollars to Deripaska for the control over the company. Earlier, other sources kept asserting that Deripaska would get nothing from the deal. As reported by the "Finam FM" radio, last spring Deripaska rejected a similar offer of the "Gazprom Neft".