Former Yukos Manager Ready to Buy Menatep’s Stake in Yukos and Pay Tax Debt

Konstantin Kagalovsky, the former top manager of Yukos Oil Company and Bank Menatep told Russia’s Gazeta daily that he is ready to buy the stake in Yukos that belongs to the oil major’s largest shareholder Group Menatep and amounts to 60 percent.

The businessman also expressed his readiness to pay off Yukos’ burgeoning tax debt, the newspaper reported. An interview with Kagalovsky was published on Monday, Nov. 8. On Tuesday Yukos’ founder and former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky reiterated his readiness to sell his stake of 44 percent in order to save Yukos.

Konstantin Kagalovsky who now lives in London became the deputy CEO of Menatep Bank in 1995 and later served as the deputy chairman of Yukos’ board of directors. Kagalovsky left the company in 2002. The businessman’s name first appeared in the news surrounding the Yukos affair in July 2004 when he fronted the group of British investors who offered to pay the oil major’s tax debt and to bail out Mikhail Khodorkovsky in exchange for his stake in the company.

Group Menatep’s shares in Yukos were frozen along with all other securities and assets in early 2004, and the authorities are unlikely to unfreeze them. But although Group Menatep cannot sell its shares directly, it may sell securities in offshore companies registered in the U.K. Virgin Islands, said Kagalovsky.

(From Moscow News, 9.11.2004)