PRESS: Halliburton abandons bid to buy Russia’s Novomet

MOSCOW, Jan 26 (PRIME) -- U.S. Halliburton has recalled its bid to buy 100% in Russia’s Perm-based oilfield service equipment producer Novomet, Kommersant business daily reported on Friday quoting a company representative.

Russian state nanotechnology company Rusnano planned to sell its 30.76% stake in Novomet in July 2016, but it repeatedly delayed the auction and increased the stake’s minimum price to 9.9 billion rubles from 7.5 billion rubles. In January 2017, the Federal Antimonopoly Service received a request to buy Novomet from Halliburton and redirected it to the government’s commission for foreign investments.

Kommersant reported that negotiations with Halliburton on the acquisition that could have amounted to U.S. $1 billion started in 2016, when the U.S. company wanted to raise its share on the Russian drilling market. It later abandoned the plans mainly because of a negative reaction of the Russian government to the deal and new U.S. sanctions, sources told Kommersant.

A representative of the service confirmed that Halliburton recalled its bid. On Thursday, the service’s Director Igor Artemyev said that Halliburton might be “waiting for new sanctions” and that the company “simply feel that they don’t want anything in this situation,” as cited by Kommersant.

Artemyev said in June 2017 that the government’s commission for foreign investment control planned to consider the Halliburton–Novomet deal in late June–early July 2017, but it has not yet discussed the deal.

A Rusnano representative of told Kommersant that the company “is open to any profitable suggestions on purchases of stakes in portfolio companies, including Novomet.”

Several oil companies are interested in the Rusnano stake, reflecting consolidation in the sector, an industry source told the business daily.

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