Streetwise Professor

The bizarre saga of CEFC just keeps getting more bizarre.  Today Bloomberg reports that the company is selling off all its real estate.  All of it: Everything must go!

CEFC China Energy Co., the sprawling conglomerate that’s come under increasing government scrutiny, plans to sell its entire global property portfolio with a book value of more than 20 billion yuan ($3.2 billion), according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Almost 100 properties are up for sale, including its headquarters in an upscale Shanghai neighborhood, four floors of the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre and a condominium at the Trump World Tower in Manhattan, as well as hotels, residential apartments and industrial facilities, said the people, asking not to be identified because the deliberations haven’t been publicly disclosed. The properties, mostly located in big Chinese cities, include a smattering of developments overseas, the people said.

Where this leaves the deal to buy the 14.1 percent stake in Rosneft from Glencore and the QIA is anybody’s guess.  But it probably doesn’t leave it in a good place.

Rosneft’s guess is probably as good as yours or mine.  They made inquiries, and learned nothing:

Rosneft representatives have since traveled to China but failed to get any update from CEFC on the stake acquisition deal, according to the sources.

“The other party (CEFC) has just vanished,” one source said.

“Just vanished” is not a phrase you normally hear uttered when referring to the purchaser of $9.1 billion in equity!  And definitely not one you want to hear!

(The Reuters piece is horribly and confusingly written, by the way.)

CEFC had apparently already paid out some money on the deal, but it has not closed.  Glencore optimistically asserted that the deal would close in the first half of 2018–which is already half over.  Given all of this uncertainty about CEFC, this looks incredibly unrealistic, but Glencore has not provided any more guidance. Go figure!

The price  CEFC agreed to was never disclosed in full, but was allegedly enough to allow Glencore (and the Russian banks backing it) and Intessa Saopaolo to emerge whole.   Glencore did let on that the price was at a 16 percent premium to the 30 day volume weighted average of the Rosneft price, presumably meaning the 30 day period (business days? Calendar days?) prior on 8 September, 2017.  In August-early September, 2017, Rosneft traded in the $5-$5.25 range, which puts the price in the $5.80-$6.00 ballpark.  That comports with a $9 billion total price for 14.16 percent of Rosneft’s 10,598,177,817 shares, which works out to about $6/share.  The price yesterday was $5.41, so it is clear that CEFC’s position is well under water.   This readily explains why the two Chinese government entities that have taken stakes in CEFC are allegedly reluctant to takeover the company altogether and proceed with the deal: it has already incurred a 10 percent loss.

To make things even more dicey, in January VTB announced it was “ready to” loan CEFC the money to finance the deal.  Presumably some of this money flowed, and is the source of the funds that have already been paid out.

So CEFC is selling off all its property.  Will it try to unload the Rosneft stake too? Or will the deal just collapse, leaving the original parties holding the bag? The deal was touted as a great example of Sino-Russian cooperation.  Will this compel the parties to save face by proceeding, or substituting some other Chinese firm?  Presumably this will require a price adjustment.  Who will eat that?

From day one almost 17 months ago the most bountiful product of the Rosneft privatization was questions.  And they just keep on coming.