Yukos Fights Bankruptcy
The beleaguered oil giant Yukos sent a letter to the Russian prime minister proposing measures that could help clear its US$3.4 billion tax claim while staving off bankruptcy, the company said Tuesday.
But there was no immediate government reaction, and with fears mounting that the company's demise was near, shares fell by about 8 percent.
Since the multi-pronged probe against Yukos and its key shareholders was launched last summer, Yukos shares have plummeted 61 percent, wiping out about US$20 billion in market capitalization.
Company officials have warned that Yukos - once celebrated as one of Russia's most successful companies - could be bankrupt by year's end if it is forced to immediately pay the tax claim against it for allegedly illegally using domestic tax havens to reduce its tax liability in 2000.
Yukos spokesman Alexander Shadrin said that in the letter, the company said that if a court does force it to pay the tax claim, it wants the government to allow it to pay in installments and to sell some of its now-frozen assets. Shadrin told NTV television that if those requests were met, it would be "completely possible" to pay the claim.
The company also asked Yukos' main shareholder, the Menatep group, "to support the decision to issue new shares to clear the tax debts," according to the Interfax news agency. Such a new issue could significantly dilute the holdings of Yukos' former chief, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and hand strong influence to the
government.
Shadrin said only that the company's managers "believe it would probably be right for the main shareholders to make their contribution to fixing the situation surrounding Yukos. What this contribution will be is a question for discussion."
Meanwhile, Yukos is challenging the claim in court. A key hearing is scheduled for Friday but the court's decision last week to replace the judge, who had agreed to even consider Yukos' protest, suggested that Yukos has little chance of winning.
Yukos claims that the tax schemes it used were legal and that many of the tax liabilities applied to companies unrelated to it.
The government froze a significant chunk of Yukos' assets last year in connection with the probe against the company and its key shareholders. Khodorkovsky and another key Yukos shareholder, Platon Lebedev, go on trial Wednesday on charges of tax evasion, embezzlement and fraud.
President Vladimir Putin has portrayed the nearly yearlong investigation into Yukos as part of Russia's effort to tackle economic crime and corruption. But the targeting of Khodorkovsky,
Russia's richest man, at a time when he was raising his political profile in pposition to Putin, has led many analysts to suggest that the Kremlin wants to sideline a potential challenger and take over his strategically powerful company.
In a rare show of support from an influential Russian business figure, Arkady Volsky, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, criticized prosecutors for jailing Khodorkovsky and Lebedev "before considering the economic accusations ... This doesn't happen in anywhere in the world."
Volsky, speaking at a St. Petersburg business forum, added that he believes Yukos will survive because "it is led by very experienced people."