Hungary may repurchase MOL stake from Russia's Surgutneftegaz

http://portfolio.hu/en/cikkek.tdp?k=1&i=20194

Hungary’s previous and current governments both conducted talks with Russia’s Surgutneftegas on buying back a 21% stake in Hungarian oil and gas group MOL, local daily Népszabadság reported.

The Russian energy giant acquired a 21.2% package in Hungary's largest company by revenue in 2009 from Austria’s OMV for EUR 1.4 bn, double the market price, in a deal that frustrated both the company and the Socialist government.

The idea to repurchase the stake first came up at meeting of a Russian-Hungarian joint economic committee in January, the paper said. At that time the buyer was considered to be either MOL or the state.

According tot the latest information, it could be the government that would propose buying back the MOL package due to the sheer size of the deal.

Surgut had been unable to vote at two annual general meetings of MOL since it bought the stake from OMV, as it has still not been registered in the company’s shareholders’ book. MOL paid no dividend to shareholders in the past two years.

"We see a very low chance for the Hungarian government buying the Surgut stake due to lack of financing. Existing agreement with IMF on the budget deficit targets keeps the governmental spending under strict control," commented Olena Kyrylenko, analyst at KBC Securities.

"There is also no urgent need to "save" MOL from Russians thanks to the existing corporate defence tools. We believe this is a bold speculation and expect no market reaction to the news," she added.