Hungarian company MOL has denied that it reached an agreement with the Russian owners of Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) and signed a contract to purchase the company. Earlier, Serbia’s Acting Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance said that an agreement has been reached between the Russian owners of NIS and MOL, and that the contract has been signed.
Hungarian company MOL announced that there have been no changes in the ongoing NIS transaction that would require MOL to inform the capital markets.
“In the event of any new, relevant developments, MOL will provide information immediately in accordance with applicable laws,” the company said.
MOL also published this information on the Budapest Stock Exchange.
Ministry of Finance: The minister was referring to the contract between Serbia and MOL
The Ministry of Finance told N1 that the minister, when speaking about the signed contract with MOL, was referring to the contract signed in June this year.
As Balkan Green Energy News previously reported, Siniša Mali said in an interview with Bloomberg Adria that the negotiations between the Russian owners of NIS and the Hungarian company MOL were successfully concluded, and noted that the Government of Serbia and the future majority owner earlier signed a shareholders’ agreement.
Of note, the agreement between the government and MOL was signed in mid-June.
Mali: The contract has been signed
Photo: Ministry of Finance
N1 quoted Mali’s statement to Bloomberg Adria. In that statement, he says:
“An agreement has been reached between the Russian side, which is the majority owner of NIS, although I have said several times that you should ask those who sold NIS, and Hungary’s MOL. So, the contract has been signed.
We also, as the state of Serbia, made that shareholder agreement. Only one more thing needs to happen, as in any transaction, and that is the approval of the antimonopoly commissions.
I expect that very soon both sides, not Serbia, but the Hungarians and the Russian side, will submit it to the antimonopoly commissions both in Serbia, and if I am not mistaken, also in BiH and I don’t know where else, which is what they call ‘condition to closing’, and I expect that transaction to finish very quickly.
Because they signed the contract, completed the agreement part, we finished the part regarding our relationship with the Hungarians, so now you just have to go through the formal closing of the contract,” Mali said.
The Russian owners of Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) are Gazprom Neft with 44.85% of shares and PJSC Intelligence with 11.30%. Both companies are owned by Gazprom. The remainder of the shares is held by the Government of Serbia (29.87%) and minority shareholders (13.98%).