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Lukoil is bidding for a controlling stake in Repsol YPF. Lukoil is offering to pay twice as much per share for acquiring a 29% stake than the rest of the shares in the company are worth. This transaction is questionable on many fronts. Should a EU country, Spain, give control of a crucial area of its economy to an non EU country, Russia when already the EU is so worried about Russian control of its energy supplies as a whole? Should Lukoil be allowed to control Repsol without buying the whole company? Should Argentina´s energy sector which already has ceded control of its former state oil company to Repsol now be controlled by Russian Lukoil? I should clarify that a small percentage stake in Fon my company is owned by Sistema´s controlled VC fund Coral and that we are very happy having Coral as an investor. The issue here is that one thing is WiFi as a form of internet connectivity and the other is a nation´s oil supply.
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Felipe on November 24, 2008 ·
I find this article rather astonishing coming from a so called ‘entrepreneur’. I thought it was all about ‘free market’, but it seems that is not. I remember a time when the telecomunications sector was also considered a strategic national reserve, and suddenly an argentinian, raised in New York, came along and founded in Spain a telephone company. ¡What an outrage! ¡a bloddy foreigner! ¡How does he dear! And now is it not funny to hear that very same ‘entrepeneur’ talking about setting barriers and fencing sectors?
First of all get your facts right: Repsol-YPF is not what you call a “State Company” it is a private company, and the same goes for Lukoil, it is also a private company. You, an argentinian, can buy either of them in the stock market if you so wish.
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fonero on November 23, 2008 ·
comstar/sistema/moscow mafia = fon russia; you made buzz in May29th, 6 Months ago, but: nothing happened. no foneras in moscow, no foneras in st petersburg, no foneras in russia, no increase, only words, only tam..tam…. that´s FON