Yukos Execs Staying Away From Russia

Half a dozen executives of embattled oil giant Yukos have left Russia and the company’s chief financial officer said Thursday that he would not return until he learned whether the government was planning charges against him.

The company’s six-member management board has been in London this week for a company meeting.

The only member of Yukos’ management reachable in Moscow on Thursday told Dow Jones Newswires that he planned to flee the country today for an indefinite time because of the company’s troubles with federal prosecutors.

Yukos and its subsidiaries face a $24.5-billion tax bill, and its former chief executive has been imprisoned for more than a year on fraud and tax evasion charges.

In a telephone interview Thursday with Associated Press, Yukos CFO Bruce Misamore denied that managers were abandoning the company and fleeing Russia to avoid prosecution.

He said the executives were mostly “abroad on trips that have been planned for some time.”

Misamore, a U.S. citizen, was in London with Yukos CEO Steven Theede and others on the management board. Misamore said prosecutors had called him in for questioning Wednesday.

“I was going to travel back [Wednesday] but had information that there was potential that they could bring charges against me,” Misamore said.

“Management hasn’t abandoned the company -- we are tying to find out what the situation is.”

Misamore said that despite key managers’ being outside Russia, Yukos’ operations would not be harmed.

The company’s day-to-day business could be run “from anywhere,” he said.

Analysts inferred the worst from the Yukos managers’ absence.

“If all the top managers are gone, including their CFO and CEO, then it’s got to fall apart at some point,” said Ronald Smith, oil and gas analyst at Renaissance Capital in Moscow.