Venezuela has ruled out the sale of state oil company PDVSA's U.S. refining subsidiary Citgo Petroleum, Finance Minister Rodolfo Marco said in an interview published in local media on Sunday."The sale of Citgo has been ruled out and the president has affirmed it," Marco told newspaper El Universal, without providing an explanation. "Venezuela will continue with Citgo and will continue to invest in refineries."PDVSA hired investment bank Lazard Ltd to handle the sale process for Citgo. An initial round of offers was tabled at the end of September with several companies showing interest, people close to the deal told Reuters this month.The U.S. operations could fetch between $8 billion and $10 billion, according to PDVSA's expectations, though several analysts and consultants have put its valuation at well below that.
Lazard Ltd (Lazard) is a holding company. Lazard is a financial advisory and asset management company. Shares of LAZ traded higher by 0.65% or $0.32/share to $49.25. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $38.52 and as high as $55.50. On average, 716612 shares of LAZ exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 392314.
Source
