RUSSIA - Oct. 3 - Investigators Search Yukos Papers.

Criminal investigators conduct a new round of searches focusing on Yukos (a sign the investigation that has shadowed the company since July is far from over. The searches, at an orphanage the company finances and at a business club in Moscow's suburbs, come as Yukos says it has completed its merger with a smaller rival, Sibneft. They also coincide with an effort by the Yukos Chairman Mikhail Khodorkovsky to bat away questions about selling a stake in YukosSibnet to ExxonMobil. After appearing with ExxonMobil's CEO Lee Raymond at the World Economic Forum in Moscow, Khodorkovsky declined to discuss reports of merger talks, though he did not rule out the possibility of a deal, saying: "When there is a deal, we will make you happy by telling you". The swirl of events has created an impression of parallel universes in Moscow - armed agents searching corporate offices and charities versus crisply suited foreign executives discussing the potential for lucrative investment deals. The new searches also underscores the uncertainty that still shrouds Yukos despite its recent successes, including the completion of its merger with Sibneft. The FT on Oct. 4 quoted Vasily Glushchenko, an official in the prosecutor general's office, as saying in an Oct. 3 telephone interview that investigators had seized a server computer at the orphanage in the town of Zvenigorod and what he characterised as "a large amount of documents" at the business club, which is in the elite suburban region of Zhukovka. Glushchenko said the searches stemmed from the investigations that began on July 2 with the arrest of Platon Lebedev, the chairman of the financial group Menatep and one of Yukos's major shareholders. At least 8 investigations have opened into Yukos and its subsidiaries on accusations that include fraud, tax evasion and even murder and attempted murder. The FT said: "Glushchenko declined to discuss the investigation in detail, but says that the server computer contained the archives of Menatep and Yukos and that the documents would 'help to establish the amount of tax payments Yukos and its structures had to pay' since 1997. The investigations, which Khodorkovsky has called politically motivated, battered Yukos's stock price over the summer", bringing down the broader market in Moscows as well. Since then, however, Yukos's stocks have rebounded sharply, buoyed by the latest reports of merger talks with ExxonMobil. The stock market has also reached new highs this week. In an interview with American journalists two weeks ago, Pres. Putin portrayed the investigations into Yukos as an isolated criminal matter and not a broader attack on the company or on the wild privatisation schemes in the 1990s that helped Yukos and its affiliates amass vast assets. He expressed hope that the matter would be resolved soon - a desire that seemed dashed with the Oct. 3 searches. Addressing the economic conference earlier in on Oct. 3, Putin said his government was determined to reduce its interference in business and to open the country to greater foreign trade and investment after decades of looking inward under the Soviet Union. The YukosSibneft merger, valued at $45 bn, creates Russia's largest oil and gas company and the world's fifth-largest private oil company. The new company will be called YukosSibneft Oil, and Khodorkovsky will remain its chairman. The new company is expected to produce 2.3m b/d of crude oil, more than a quarter of Russia's total production). Sibneft's current president, Eugene Shvidler, says the speed with which the merger has been completed "shows how well these two companies fit together".