Oil board probes mysterious move by oligarch
THE London-listed oil company JKX Oil & Gas is scrambling to find out why a Ukrainian MP has quietly become its second largest shareholder in a deal that has sparked speculation of a potential takeover by oligarchs.
Vitaliy Khomutynnik, one of Ukraine’s richest men, has clinched a 20 per cent stake in JKX – which has assets in Ukraine and Russia – via an investment fund called Cascade. He bought the stake from Proxima, a Russian fund that in 2016 succeeded in booting out the entire JKX board.
His surprise move has raised eyebrows among JKX’s British investors because Khomutynnik has links with Ukrainian oligarchs Igor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov. The pair are JKX’s largest shareholder through their investment vehicle Eclairs.
In another thread of the tangled Ukrainian connections, JKX has a 10 per cent stake in Ukrnaftoburinnia, a Ukrainian gas firm where Kolomoisky and Khomutynnik are major shareholders.
One top JKX investor told The Mail on Sunday that there were fears the purchase of the JKX stake could be a precursor to a takeover by the top two shareholders or it could herald a merger between JKX and Ukrnaftoburinnia.
A JKX spokesman said: ‘We’ve made an inquiry to try to find out who is behind Cascade and their intentions.’
Last December, the High Court in London granted a £2 billion freezing order on assets owned by Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov, including their stake in JKX and properties in London’s Belgravia, in a dispute with PrivatBank, a Ukrainian state-owned lender once owned by the oligarchs.
PrivatBank claims they took the £2 billion through a series of ‘dishonest transactions’ with firms they secretly controlled. They deny the allegations.