Behind every billionaire there is a story!

Sibir Plunges 57% on Russian Billionaire ‘Bailout’

Sibir Energy Plc, a London-traded Russian oil producer, fell the most since it listed in 1997 after announcing plans to buy $340 million worth of property from billionaire shareholder Chalva Tchigirinski.Sibir tumbled 57 percent to 43 pence in London, valuing the company at about 166 million pounds ($245 million). Sibir’s board “concluded that the company must take over the bulk” of Tchigirinski’s real-estate business, the company said in a statement today.

“My advice for shareholders is to fire the management,” said Ivan Mazalov, a fund manager at Prosperity Capital Management in Moscow who helps oversee $5 billion of assets, and doesn’t own Sibir shares. “Investors in this company certainly don’t like the way it is bailing out the company’s major shareholder.”

Sibir is the second company in as many months to provoke criticism for buying assets to help billionaire investors, after Russian power generator OAO OGK-3 announced plans to purchase shares in companies controlled by Vladimir Potanin’s Interros holding company. Potanin owns a stake in Norilsk Nickel, which controls OGK-3. Moscow brokerage Renaissance Capital dubbed OGK- 3 the “bank of Interros” in a client note.

Stalin’s Hotel

Sibir has agreed to buy the Sovietsky Hotel in Moscow, built in 1952 at the order of Soviet leader Josef Stalin, among at least $158.9 million of real-estate, oil refining and marketing assets from companies connected to Tchigirinski

read the rest published by Bloomberg here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601095&sid=aS_Y7fzEKDYc