金融时报：China’s Citic in talks to buy into energy group CEFC 中信洽购华信能源

 Citic, China’s state-owned finance-to-infrastructure conglomerate, is in talks to take a stake in energy group CEFC following the detention of its chairman Ye Jianming, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The talks were still preliminary, they said, and complicated by CEFC’s existing plan to buy 14 per cent of Rosneft, the Russian oil company, from commodity trader Glencore and the Qatar Investment Authority for $9bn.

Executives at Citic and other Chinese companies with significant overseas business are wary of US sanctions against prominent Russians including Rosneft’s owner Igor Sechin, a close ally of Vladimir Putin.

Ivan Glasenberg, the Glencore chief executive, on Tuesday sought to reassure investors that the Rosneft deal was still alive. Speaking at a Financial Times conference, he said it had been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top planning body.

Citic is not the first potential buyer to emerge for part of CEFC. Chinese state-owned asset manager Huarong has built up a 36 per cent stake in the CEFC subsidiary involved in the Rosneft purchase.

On Monday, CEFC’s European arm pulled a request to the Czech national bank for approval to raise its stake in Prague-based financial company J&T to 50 per cent from 9.9 per cent. It said the decision had been taken “in view of the forthcoming change in shareholding structure”, without giving further detail.

CEFC Europe also said that Mr Ye, who has been detained in China, according to several people with knowledge of the situation, would relinquish his shareholding and management role.

CEFC suspended trading in shares of its Shanghai-listed unit on Tuesday for up to 10 days, pending a further announcement.

Mr Ye's disappearance has raised questions about CEFC’s $9bn deal to buy a 14 per cent stake in Rosneft, with the executives at the selling companies and Russian banks involved in the deal still seeking information. Rosneft has previously said that the deal is a matter between CEFC and the sellers but two people familiar with developments in China said that Rosneft had authorised the stake sale and was now pressing for its completion.

Glencore was also eager to complete the sale, according to people briefed on the deal, which would leave it and the Qatari fund with small shares in the oil group.

CEFC has built up energy and infrastructure assets in China, the Middle East and Europe, partly using loans and high-interest financing raised in China which has put it in the cross-hairs of Beijing’s crackdown on capital outflows that pose systemic financial risk.

China’s state-owned oil industry is cautious about Russian oil investments, according to local executives. “I don’t think the three big state oil companies in China will be so eager to step up,” said one senior Chinese oil industry executive, who is not directly involved in the deal.