A US hedge fund manager has confirmed he is in talks to provide funding for the purchase of Yukos’ foreign assets won by a former unit of state-run oil group Rosneft in an auction last week, deepening the mystery surrounding one of Yukos’s most controversial bankruptcy sales.

In an interview with the FT, Richard Deitz, head of US hedge fund VR Capital, said he was in talks to fund the winning bid for Yukos’s foreign assets, won by Promneftstroi for $305m in a final Yukos bankruptcy sale. The lot includes Yukos Finance BV, which is estimated to hold up to $2.5bn in assets.