Sale of Rosneft stake to CEFC cancelled

The deal that was announced last autumn involved the Chinese CEFC's acquisition of a 14 % stake in Rosneft from a consortium of Glencore and the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). A Glencore press release last week said the deal had been cancelled. The consortium will also be dissolved and the stake meant for CEFC will go to a QIA subsidiary. Under the new arrangement, QIA will own 18.9 % of Rosneft and Glencore 0.6 %.

CEFC failed to raise the money to finance the deal after its chairman was detained by Chinese officials. China's state-owned investment company Citic Group has bought out CEFC's assets in the Czech Republic, but not foreign assets elsewhere nor the option on Rosneft stake. CEFC participated last autumn in the IPO of the Russian energy company En+. En+ last month was placed on the US SDN sanctions list.