Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov signed the necessary resolution Monday in accordance with the law on the privatization of state and municipal property.
The government "agreed to the proposal by the Economic Development and Trade Ministry, approved by the Industry and Energy Ministry and Rosneftegaz, to sell Rosneft's shares in the amount of 1,356,498,963 shares by way of offering them to an unlimited number of persons," the resolution said.
Rosneft's charter capital is divided into 9,092,174,000 shares with a par value of 0.01 ruble ($1 equals about 27 rubles). On June 21, the Federal Financial Markets Service registered Rosneft's additional issue of 400 million shares with the same face value worth 4 million rubles (about $148,000).
Rosneft is planning to conduct an initial public offering simultaneously in London and Moscow in July and plans to raise between $8 billion and $20 billion. Russia's no.2 crude producer will use some of the funds to pay off a $7.5-bln loan taken by its parent company Rosneftegaz to buy a 10.74% stake in energy giant Gazprom.
