LetterOne says it won’t take Wintershall Dea’s Russian assets from BASF

By Ludwig Burger

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -LetterOne will not take on Russian assets of Wintershall Dea and has not held talks with co-investor BASF on such a transaction, a spokesperson for the investment group said.

A person familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier that BASF is looking into transferring Russian assets of its oil and gas business Wintershall Dea to partner LetterOne.

“We have had no discussions with BASF about this and have no plans to take on Russian assets,” the spokesperson said.

Offloading the assets would have advanced the German chemicals giant’s efforts to extricate itself from businesses in Russia and could have allowed BASF to revive plans for an initial public offering of the remaining energy business.

It had faced opposition from LetterOne this year against a listing of Wintershall Dea.

BASF said last week it had for now given up efforts to separately list Wintershall Dea due to the joint-venture’s exposure in Russia, which is under Western-led sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine.

BASF said at the time it was still determined in principle to withdraw from the oil and gas business. It is also preparing to wind down the company’s remaining business activities in Russia by early July, excluding products for food production.

BASF declined to comment on LetterOne’s statement.

Wintershall, which derives about half of its oil and gas production from Russia, deferred to BASF on the matter, when asked for comment.

BASF’s considerations of an asset transfer were first reported by Bloomberg.

The German group owns a 72.7% stake in Wintershall Dea and the remainder is held by Letter One. The Russian investors behind LetterOne, Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, stepped down from the investment company’s board after the European Union imposed sanctions on them.

Billionaire Fridman said in a statement last month that the war in Ukraine was a tragedy and that it should stop.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Kirsten Donovan)