Russia’s Richest Company Is Surging 33% and No One Is Saying Why - Bloomberg

Russia’s Richest Company Is Surging 33% and No One Is Saying Why - Bloomberg:

Shares in Surgutneftegas PJSC, the Russian oil company sitting on a $51.6 billion cash pile, are on a tear for the ages and nobody has a good explanation for why.

The ordinary shares are up 33% on massive volumes this week. Surgutneftegas’s preference shares also have been on a wild ride, losing nearly a third of their value in July before recovering much of that decline over the past three days. Even after the surge, the company’s market value is less than half its net cash position.

The increase came after Surgutneftegas created a new securities unit, Rion, potentially opening the door for it to invest some of the cash pile -- which mostly sits as deposits in large state-owned banks, forming a critical part of their capital -- in higher-yield vehicles.