A day after Mikhail Khodorkovsky resigned as CEO of Yukos, the Russian oil company has appointed two Americans to head its operations, a move analysts say makes the company a tougher target for future moves against it by the Russian government. Yukos’s appointment of Russian-born US national Simon Kukes as chief executive and Steven Theede as the head of a key subsidiary also appeared to be aimed at calming investors unnerved by the jailing of its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. They join Bruce Misamore, also a US citizen, who has been Yukos’s chief financial officer since 2001.
Kukes, who emigrated to the US in 1977, was head of the Russian oil firm TNK when he helped engineer British Petroleum’s USD 7 billion purchase of TNK earlier this year. The deal marked the largest foreign investment in Russia’s history.
