Streetwise Professor

In my most recent post on the Bashneft saga, I surmised that there might be a quid pro quo: Rosneft would be allowed to buy the smaller producer in exchange for a promise to proceed with its long delayed privatization. It appears that something along those lines is what is going on, although whereas I conjectured that Putin made this offer to Sechin, Bloomberg reports that Sechin is pitching the idea to Putin:

Rosneft PJSC chief Igor Sechin, not taking no for an answer, has come up with a proposal to expand his energy empire while helping critics in the Russian government meet their goal of reducing the widest budget deficit in six years.

Sechin, a longtime ally of President Vladimir Putin, has asked the government to let state-run Rosneft buy its controlling stake in smaller oil producer Bashneft PJSC for $5 billion in cash, a premium to the market, according to two senior officials. Russia could then earn another $11 billion by proceeding with its delayed sale of 19.5 percent of Rosneft itself, generating a $16 billion windfall that would cut this year’s projected deficit in half, they said.

Sechin is also proposing to sell off small pieces of Rosneft to multiple investment funds and trading firms, rather than a big chunk to the Chinese or Indians.

This illustrates the transactional nature of Putinism. Presumably other interested parties have submitted their proposals to Putin, who will decide based on a mixture of efficiency, fiscal, and political considerations. The political considerations will focus on the distribution of rents among his retainers in exchange for political support and other services that those favored can provide Putin. Putin is in essence holding an auction, and the technocratic opposition to a Rosneft acquisition (at least before it privatizes) essentially forces Sechin to bid more aggressively.

One interesting aspect of this is the sequencing. If Putin bestows Bashneft on Rosneft in exchange for a promise of a future privatization, would Sechin dare to stall or delay once Bashneft is in hand, resorting to his usual arguments that due to this, that, or the other, the price isn’t right? If Rosneft sells off a stake in exchange for Putin’s promise that it can then acquire Bashneft, might Putin say at a later date: “Things have changed, so I’ve changed my mind”?  Making commitments credible in a personalized, natural state is not an easy thing. And these things get harder, the older Putin gets, as the end game problem looms larger by the day. The ability to evade future performance depends on  the political balance and economic conditions at the time performance is required, and those can shift dramatically.

So this is Sechin’s bid. It will be interesting to see whether Putin accepts it, and the conditions that he imposes in an attempt to make sure that Sechin lives up to his half of the bargain. Those conditions will reveal a good deal about not just Sechin’s current position within the hierarchy, but the degree of trust between the major players in the regime.