Moscow Times
Russia plans to delay its privatization program and hold on to stakes in state companies such as Rosneft for longer, a report said Monday, compounding disappointment for investors who have been pulling money from the country.
In 2010, Russia announced plans to raise $50 billion in five years from reducing its stakes in the likes of oil major Rosneft and the country’s two biggest banks, Sberbank and VTB.
Russia has completed only a handful of privatizations so far, and observers are not surprised that a new timetable is in the pipeline.
“It’s a little negative; you hear one thing and suddenly it changes,” one trader said.
A new plan would be reviewed by the government next week and that the sale of 19.5 percent of Rosneft is unlikely to be completed before 2016, entrenching state control over the medium term, Vedomosti reported Monday.
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State Could Pull Plug on Rosneft Privatization
