OREANDA-NEWS. January 14, 2011. Principal shareholders of Ukrnafta, a major Ukrainian oil and gas producer, may have agreed to list it on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) by the end of 2011, Interfax reported Jan 13. The funds raised should go towards the major expansion of the company into refining business with possible gas station acquisitions.

Millennium Capital considers the news as POSITIVE for UNAF as it creates favorable sentiment around the stock and may promote its share price substantially above the current level. Yet Millennium Capital has material concerns on the issue. First, Millennium Capital highly doubts that Ukrnafta will be listed on the LSE by end-2011 since the procedure requires financial audit under IFRS for at least three years and the company is obviously not structured properly and is ill-prepared at this point to go public successfully. Second, w Millennium Capital points out that Ukrainian government may be simply inapt to proceed with IPO of any of its major assets, including UNAF, besides talks which many failed privatization cases confirm. Still Millennium Capital is looking forward for confirmation on the news which should come at the coming shareholders’ meetings. The outcome of the closest of them (AGM scheduled for Feb 25, 2010) will be a test that will show whether there is any actual constructive agreement between major conflicting shareholders, government and Pryvat.