YUKOS stockholder refutes having proposed deal to state authorities

"I have not declared any initiative on handing over my stake in YUKOS to the state," YUKOS major shareholder Leonid Nevzlin told RBC TV. He specified that "numerous mediators with dubious authority" had been constantly trying to contact him and other shareholders in the company who were living abroad currently. Similar proposals have been made to YUKOS management, Nevzlin added. Commenting on information disseminated by Bloomberg about YUKOS shareholders' readiness to handover their stake in exchange for releasing Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, he said that he had only answered a journalist's question about his attitude to such negotiations. "Actually such negotiations could be held. We would stop being major shareholders, but they should change the measure of restraint; let people out of jail and we will manage to make up a common position," Nevzlin declared.

© &to=http://www.rbcnews.com' target=_blank>RBC