Reuters 26 September 2012
To make binding, all-cash offer by mid-October – source
-
No price determined for 50 pct stake
AAR had proposed $10 bln for 25 pct in TNK-BP
Financing to come from borrowing against TNK-BP
The billionaires who own half of Russian oil firm TNK-BP plan to make a cash offer for BP’s 50 percent stake, raising the prospect of a bid contest with state-backed Rosneft that would start at around $20 billion.
Such an auction would pit the four Soviet-born tycoons, who amassed their assets in the chaotic 1990s, against Rosneft’s chief executive Igor Sechin, a confidant of President Vladimir Putin who wants to build his company into a national champion.
A source close to the AAR consortium, which groups Mikhail Fridman, German Khan, Viktor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik, said it would make a binding offer by mid-October.
“We will pay cash, but have not yet determined the price,” the source said on Wednesday.
AAR had previously said it was willing to pay $10 billion for half of BP’s stake in Russia’s third-largest oil company.
Read more…