The Independent leads on how “this week the London Stock Exchange will play host to one of the biggest share sales on record. But the £6bn flotation of Rosneft, a state-owned Russian oil producer, will not only be huge, it will also be massively controversial”.
The paper goes on to argue that critics of Rosneft, who include the billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros, claim the company has been built on assets stolen by the Kremlin from another set of shareholders. Therefore allowing Rosneft to list its shares will “legitimise that act and undermine London’s reputation as one of the world’s leading financial centres”.
The allegation against the company is simply put: that its main subsidiary, an oil and gas business called Yuganskneftegaz, was illegally expropriated from another oil company called Yukos by the Russian government. Soros has condemned the Rosneft flotation for raising “serious ethical and energy security issues”.
So are you going to invest then?