Russian businessman may sue Serbia

Russian businessman may sue Serbia

It means that the state, which owned a 70 percent stake or 571,023 of Putnik’s shares, has sold its stock for EUR 73.98 per share.

The new owners will be known in three days, after the new ownership structure data has been processed.

Russian businessman Dmitry Lutsenko had made a EUR 67.81 per share offer to buy at least 70 percent of Putnik’s, which in the light of latest developments on the Belgrade Stock Exchange meant his offer fell through.

The law stipulates that a company that submitted a purchase offer to the Securities Commission had no right to buy the shares of the company in the stock market.

Dmitry Lutsenko’s lawyers announced they will seek damage compensation and dispatch an official protest via the Russian Embassy to Serbia.

Miroslav Boras, one of Dmitry Lutsenko’s legal representatives, said that “a mysterious buyer appeared and acquired the whole lot o state-owned shares.”

Boras speculated “that the mysterious buyer might have been connected with the state, taking into account dubious circumstances of a hasty purchase of Putnik shares in the BSE and the treatment Lutscenko had by certain Serbian ministers."

“Economy minister Predrag Bubalo and foreign economic relations minister Milan Parivodić asked the Securities Commission not to let Lutsenko purchase Putnik. However, the Commission resisted pressure and approved his offer abiding by the law,” Boras argued.

Chairman of the Putnik Small-Shareholders Association Darko Šuković said he learned that the Russian company Metropol was the new owner of Putnik. He also voiced satisfaction speaking on behalf of Putnik’s small shareholders that Putnik was taken over by an eminent company.