Angling for a pay rise: Eduard Rebgun
Rebgun wants $2m for Yukos job
The court-appointed receiver for Yukos, once Russia's most profitable company, has complained that he is being paid too little and wants at least $2 million per year, local media reported today.
Moscow's arbitration court, which declared Yukos bankrupt on Tuesday, hired Eduard Rebgun on a monthly salary of 1.8 million roubles ($67,260).
But Rebgun told Moscow-based business daily Vedomosti that he was already 4.4 million roubles out of pocket, after already working on the case for four months, due to high insurance premiums.
Rebgun compared his pay with that of top executives of Yukos who he said made an average 8.7 million roubles a month, excluding bonuses.
"After all, I have taken on responsibility for a company in the stage of bankruptcy," Rebgun told Vedomosti. He said $2 million a year would be a fair annual pay "so I can just concentrate on my work, not look for other bonanzas".
Rebgun has a year to pay off creditors by selling or refloating the company. He said he would get to work immediately.
He has assessed Yukos' assets at $17.7 billion, less than its liabilities, while lawyers for the stricken producerargue the company is worth at least twice as much.
Yukos has claimed the Kremlin used illegal and unfounded methods to destroy it, freezing its accounts and demanding $33 billion in back tax. Former company boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, was jailed for eight years for fraud and tax evasion.