27 April 2004 17:12
Russian pundits, businessmen offer views on Yukos appointment
The expected appointment of [former Russian Central Bank chairman] Viktor Gerashchenko to the post of chairman of the
Yukos oil company's board of directors is a PR move aimed at demonstrating the readiness for a dialogue with the
authorities, Steven Dashevskiy, director of [Russia's] Aton Capital Group's analytical department, told Ekho
Moskvy.
"I am inclined to take it as a step from Yukos major investors aimed at showing the company's readiness to
start a dialogue with the authorities and to increase the state's influence on the company," Dashevskiy
said.
"However, I am not sure that the state is very much interested in such signs. I do not think that gestures like
letters to a newspaper or appointing high-ranking figures to merely representative posts can stimulate the authorities
to "forgive" the company or its shareholders," he said.
Gerashchenko's appointment looks like an agreement about a peaceful solution in a situation around Yukos, Igor
Yurgens, vice president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, told Ekho Moskvy.
He believes that Khodorkovskiy's letters "as well as such appointments are heralding some sort of a
peaceful solution that will save the sides' faces," Yurgens said.
"The situation around Yukos is so appallingly iniquitous, that the authorities find it extremely difficult to
admit their mistake. Gerashchenko is the sort of person who is capable of initiating talks that will lead to a solution
permitting the sides to save their faces," Yevgeniy Saburov, a scientific consultant with the Higher School of
Economics, told Ekho Moskvy.
Gerashchenko's presence in Yukos' board of directors "is not going to add to Yukos reputation,"
businessman Boris Berezovskiy told Ekho Moskvy. "Gerashchenko is a brilliant banker and a brilliant professional
and there are no doubts about his professional career. As for his personal reputation, he has spoilt it forever when he
decided to play big politics and took a decision to join the Motherland bloc," Berezovskiy said.
[Ekho Moskvy news agency] |
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