tolmie's hairdoo said:
Dyed Petya...loved your insights from last night, this morn.
Out of interest, are you able to tell me how Abramovich and old car dealer mate were able to find $400m dollars for that well-below-value stake in, was it, Sibneft?
Incredible. Was it just a case that Putin put people around a table and asked what his cut would be.
If so, feel sorry for Russia's previously richest man, Khorokovsky, the media guy?
Surely, the patsy in this whole cover-up.
Suppose it pays to have friends in high places when it comes to Roman, eh?
It's long and complex and I can only be brief.
Back in the 1990s, when you had the privatisations and loans for shares and so on, it was Yeltsin who was in power. The 1996 Presidential election was a big thing - Yeltsin looked like he was going to lose and Zyuganov, the Communist, would have got in. In 1995, they devised a thing called the 'loans for shares' programme, to stop the big state enterprises from going bankrupt and to help finance Yeltsin's campaign (obviously, he won the election).
This was effectively a privatisation of huge swathes of Russia's natural assets through the transfer into private hands of companies like Sibneft - and also the likes of Norilsk Nickel, LUKoil, Yukos and many others. The companies were effectively auctioned off, leased to commercial bank in return for loans to central government: subsequently, the loans were written off, and so the share transfers became permanent. Unfortunately, they auctions were all rigged.
The way it tended to work was as follows. All of the major oligarchs at the time owned banks, and for each of the privatisations, the bank of a given oligarch would be appointed by the government to handle the privatisation. Bids to loan the government money in return for leasing the shares were invited, and all bids would be disqualified except the one from the organising bank. Needless to say, they invariably only paid a fraction of the true value.
As for Khodorkovsky - he took on Putin, so was clamped down on, simple as that. He was financing opposition political parties and so on. Abramovich has never tried to take on the Kremlin. Simple as that, really.
