Moscow:  Formidable Russian politician Anatoly Chubais today wrapped up the work of national power company Unified Energy Systems after a massive, nearly decade-long deregulation exercise.

"Our mission is complete," the chairman of UES, Chubais, said as he lowered the company flag outside its Moscow headquarters on its last day, after promising to auction off his well-padded executive chair for charity.

"The structure of the sale has been decided ... But I m not giving up the chair until midnight," said Chubais, a looming presence in Russian politics for much of the last two decades, at a televised news conference.

"UES has turned from a company working in conditions of severe economic crisis into a blue chip of the stock market with capitalisation of USD 50 billion (32 billion euros)," the company said in a statement.

Today s ceremony marked not only the deregulation of the sector, which has been broken up into dozens of new holdings, attracting huge foreign investment.

It also marks a milestone for Chubais, who has sworn to put his feet up after helping oversee controversial privatisations in the 1990s, the re-election of president Boris Yeltsin in 1996,the founding of a liberal opposition party, the Union of Right Forces, and heading UES.

After the 1991 Soviet collapse, Russia faced a massive task to restore faltering energy systems and keep pace with spiralling demand and internal migration to major cities like Moscow.

After the deregulation, investors include Italy s Enel, Germany s E. ON. And RWE and Finland s Fortum.

Source : PTI