Once Upon A Giant
Okay guys, I know that Yukos has nothing to do with us and I’m sure quite a few people are going “Yukos who??” But you guys just have to bear with me once more as I take out my angst against the inequities of the world. I know if you aren’t doing too well (well I know that was an understatement…Yukos has been on its deathbed for quite some time now) bankruptcy is one of the options you must seriously consider. So, the company, whose heyday came under founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is now onto its last hiccups. In Russia, state energy giants are already preparing to swoop on the company’s assets. There appears to be little chance of saving the group now, after a Russian court-appointed administrator told a creditors meeting last week that Yukos should be declared bankrupt.
Did you know that in the late 90s, Yukos was so powerful that it virtually huge stretches of western Siberia and even had plans to build its own oil pipeline to China? All this changed in 2003, when Yukos was hit with massive back tax bills and a vast judicial inquiry. Most critics believed that this was a Kremlin-orchestrated campaign to neutralize Khodorkovsky as he could have been a strong potential political opponent. The state also wanted to wrest back state control of key energy assets.
The court decision that came today was a foregone conclusion. Bankruptcy –despite record-high world market prices and despite the fact that the company is still extracting around half a million barrels of oil per day. And company executives are tired of crying out that their financial problems are not as bad as they are claimed to be.
Oh, and before I forget, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, is now serving an eight-year prison sentence for financial crimes in a Siberian prison camp. That’s what comes of doing business in a country like Russia.
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