C.A.T. oil IPO - Death - kidnappings- theft an everyday story of Russian oil Oligarchs

STOP PRESS On the Deutsche Bourse CAT was trading at Eur 18.55/78 mid morning 4/5/06

The C.A.T.Oil AG IPO was discussed here yesterday and more information comes Lord Patel's way from the sunny island of Aphrodite.

Vitaly Schmidt died suddenly aged 47 on August 31st 1997, co owner at his death of LUKoil, his son Vadim believes his father's share in various offshore vehicles that were set up on behalf of LUKoil owners have been illegally seized.(Vadim and his mother inherited nothing of LUKoil, his father lived with another lady) Vadim has been chasing this claim by litigation across EurPe. German prosecutors started an investigation to verify whether flame haired Anna Brinkmann (pic - once "translator" to Vitaly Schmidt) had transferred a stake owned by Vitaly Schmidt to another shareholder without Schmidt's consent (WSJ) The investigation was closed in 2004, and no charges followed. LUKoil threatened to sue Russian TV Station NTV for 10 billion rubles ( then US$357 Mn.) in connection with an investigation broadcast in early July 2000 concerning the death three years previously of LUKoil Vice President Vitaly Schmidt, but they never did.


(Please don't be confused and imagine that this has anything to do with the kidnapping of Sergei Kukura, the first vice–president of Lukoil Oil Company, who was kidnapped on September 12 2002 and turned up at his country villa on September 25 alone and unscathed. No ransom was paid(although somehow US$6MN in used notes creeps into the OPry) and no explanation has ever been made.) More here and also here

Now in a letter to Dresdner Kleinworth Wasserstein, the managers for the IPO of C.A.T.oil AG which launches an IPO on the Deutsche Bourse today Vadim Schmidt claims C.A.T. Oil's owners include LUKoil president Vagit Alekperov; Semyon Vainshtok, a former senior LUKoil executive and current head of Russian State pipeline monopoly Transneft; and Ralif Safin, a former top executive at LUKoil. This was reported in the The Wall Street Journal yesterday 2/5/06 (not online).

As a consequence C.A.T.oil AG denied the claim yesterday and a company spokesman, Lutz Golsch, said it was owned by two non-Russians -- Walter Hoeft and Anna Brinkmann. Brinkmann once served as a translator to Vitaly Schmidt, the late LUKoil executive.

The IPO managers released this information as an appendix to the prospectus - and committed investors have the opportunity to withdraw their share applications.
Moscow Times today

Watch this space.