Khodorkovsky's Yukos shares now in Rothschild hands

LONDON, Nov 2 (AFP) - Control of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's shares in Yukos have passed to the renowned banker Lord Jacob Rothschild under a deal which they hammered out prior to the Russian oil baron's arrest, the Sunday Times reported.

Voting rights to the shares passed to Rothschild, 67, under a "previously unknown arrangement" designed to take effect in the event that Khodorkovsky could not longer "act as a beneficiary" of the shares, it said.

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Khodorkovsky, 40, whom Russian authorities arrested at gunpoint and jailed pending further investigation last week, was said by the Sunday Times to have made the arrangement with Rothschild when he realized he was facing arrest.

Rothschild now controls the voting rights on a stake in Yukos worth almost 8 billion pounds (11.6 billion euros, 13.5 billion dollars), the newspaper said in a dispatch from Moscow.

Khodorkovsky owns four percent in Yukos directly and 22 percent through a trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, according to Russian analysts.

From the figures reported in the Sunday Times, it appeared Rothschild had received control of all Khodorkovsky shares.

The two have known each other for years "through their mutual love of the arts" and their positions as directors of the the Open Russia Foundation, Yukos's philanthropic branch, it said.

Russian authorities had on Thursday frozen billions of dollars of shares of Khodorkovsky and his top lieutenants in Yukos -- throwing control of the country's largest oil company into limbo and casing frenzied selling on financial markets.

Russian prosecutors said that owners of the shares were still entitled to dividends and retained voting rights, but could no longer sell their stake.

They said the freeze was necessary as collateral for the billion dollars that Khodorkovsky and his associates are accused of misappropriating during the 1990s.

Rothschild is the British head of Europe's wealthy and influential Rothschild family, and runs his own investment empire with such firms as RIT Capital Partners, Saint James Place Capital and J. Rothschild Assurance.

He has not been involved with NM Rothschild, the London-based investment bank, since he split with it 22 years ago, the Sunday Times said.

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