Russia shelves US$5b deal as asset sales hit snag

Moscow

RUSSIA is delaying what would have been its biggest asset sale in a decade after renewed weakness in global oil markets and tensions among potential buyers upended plans to offer a stake in Bashneft PJSC.

"The prime minister made the decision, which was approved by the president, to move the Bashneft privatisation to a later date," Premier Dmitry Medvedev's spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said by phone on Tuesday, without elaborating. The sale won't happen this year, the news website RBC reported, citing a person it didn't identify.