The London Stock Exchange is expected to start free trading of Rosneft GDRs on July 19 after the U.K. Financial Services Authority puts the Russian oil producer on its official list.
Rosneft closed the books Friday on its initial public offering - the biggest in Russian history - placing 1.4 billion ordinary shares (GDRs abroad) in Moscow and London with a total worth of $10.4 billion.
Demand had the following structure: strategic investors - 21%, international investors from the U.S., Europe and Asia - 36%, Russian investors - 39%, Russian retail investors - 4%.
Rosneft president Sergei Bogdanchikov said Sunday that three strategic investors had subscribed for $3 billion of the company's shares. He said that U.K.-based BP had subscribed for $1 billion worth of shares, Malaysian oil company Petronas for $1.5 billion, and China National Petroleum Corporation for $500 million.
Rosneft said its capitalization after the IPO would stand at $79.8 billion, and could rise to $80.2 billion if the leading international IPO coordinators and book-runners - ABN AMRO Rothschild, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, JPMorgan Securities Ltd., and Morgan Stanley & Co - choose to realize an additional share option.
But the High Court in London is set to start hearing Monday a request from Yukos to impose an injunction on the world's fifth biggest initial public offering. The court will have to rule on whether a decision made by the Financial Services Authority and the LSE to list Rosneft shares was lawful.
Yukos claims Yuganskneftgaz, Rosneft's main oil production unit, was seized from Yukos by the Russian government. Rosneft bought the unit in 2005 and will use some of the funds raised in the IPO to clear multibillion-dollar loans taken out to fund the acquisition.
Bogdanchikov said his company was not concerned about legal actions to its planned listing in London as the former owners of Yuganskneftgaz had lost all suits filed in various countries against Rosneft.
"We have had Yuganskneftegaz in our ownership for 18 months," Bogdanchikov said at a summit of G8 industrialized nations being held near St. Petersburg. "Over this period, its [former] owners have filed suits in different jurisdictions, including Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, and have lost all of them."
Bogdanchikov also said 14 banks from 10 countries had won the suits against former owners of Yuganskneftegaz and initiated bankruptcy procedures.
