Read the text. Complete the sentences with the words from the box. You will not need two of them.

investors replenish bid never viable reservation investment enterprise value loan security pointless astonishingly explicit auction twice disqualify revenue wary artificially

The second stage of the privatization process lasted from 1995 to 1996, and was focused on obtaining large payments for significant enterprise stakes. The principal objectives of this scheme were to … the state budget and to attract domestic and foreign investment into Russia. Unfortunately, these objectives were … achieved because:

· most of the financially … and attractive businesses had already been privatized during the first stage of development;

· domestically, large-scale investors did not yet exist; and

· foreign investors were still … of large-scale capital injections into Russian entities (particularly due to the volatile political environment in the Russian Federation at the time).

As a result of the difficulty in attracting … during this second stage, the “loans for shares” scheme was introduced. The outcome of these auctions was that a limited number of Russian businessmen were able to acquire state property at … low prices. Loans-for-shares was an audacious scheme to acquire Russia’s biggest companies for a fraction of their …. The Russian Government wanted to raise …, but found it politically difficult to sell its stakes in Russia's largest enterprises, which had also been excluded from voucher privatization. The banks proposed to … funds to the government for several years, with repayment secured by the government’s majority stakes in these enterprises. Everybody knew that the Government would never repay the loans, and would instead forfeit its shares to the banks that made the loans. Under loans-for-shares, the Government auctioned its shares in a number of major oil, metals, and telephone companies in return for loans, giving the shares (and accompanying voting rights) as … to whomever would loan it the most money.

But the auctions were peculiar indeed. The right to manage the auctions was parceled out among the major banks, who contrived to win the auctions that they had been appointed to manage, at … low prices. The bid rigging that was implicit in divvying up the auction managing role became … in the actual bidding. The auction manager participated in two separate consortia (to meet the formal requirement for at least two bids), each of whom … the government’s reservation price or trivially above that. No one else bid at all. Foreigners were either excluded formally, or understood that it was … to try to bid. In the couple of cases when someone bid in an … intended to be won by someone else, the true nature of the “auctions” came to the fore, as pretexts were found to disqualify the high bidder. For example, Oneksimbank managed the Norilsk Nickel auction, with a …price of $170 million. It arranged three bids from affiliates, all at $170 or $170.1 million. Unexpectedly, Rossiiski Kredit Bank offered $355 million, over … as much. Oneksimbank found patently spurious grounds to … Rossiiski Kredit’s bid; Oneksimbank’s affiliate won the bidding at $170.1 million.

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