Rosneft Plans To Release Shares In IPO

Russian state oil firm Rosneft plans to issue shares in an initial public offering before consolidating its majority-owned subsidiaries, Valery Nazarov, the head of Russia?s Federal Property Agency, said.

?It?s planned to place a new issue of Rosneft shares before carrying out the consolidation,? he said.

That would reverse the expected sequence of events, since Rosneft has previously said it would consolidate shares in subsidiaries in the first half of the year and then conduct its $20-billion IPO in the second six months of 2006.