Rusal pledges 25% stakes in units

Oleg Deripaska’s UC Rusal has pledged 25 per cent stakes in its main aluminium subsidiaries to the Russian state as an additional condition to a $4.5bn government bail-out loan, the head of the state-owned bank VEB has revealed. The disclosure of the pledges on the $4.5bn loan Rusal received last autumn from VEB has provided further evidence of the extent of Moscow’s grip on Mr Deripaska’s metals empire as he battles to keep it afloat and restructure nearly $17bn in loans to foreign and Russian banks. It had already been revealed that Rusal had also pledged its 25 per cent stake in Norilsk Nickel, the world’s biggest nickel miner, as collateral to VEB. In an interview with the Financial Times, Vladimir Dmitriev, VEB chairman, said his bank had taken collateral that fully covered the value of the $4.5bn bail-out loan his bank issued last October to prevent the Norilsk stake being seized by western creditors. “From the point of view of security, VEB is probably in a better position than any of the western or Russian creditors,” he said. He declined to name the subsidiaries, however, saying only that his bank had taken pledges for 25 per cent stakes “in a series of aluminium enterprises that are key for Rusal”. “These are the company’s most serious assets,” he said. Mr Dmitriev was speaking as Rusal embarks on restructuring talks with more than 70 foreign creditors after reaching a two-month standstill agreement on principal payments on $7.4bn in loans. Foreign creditors are anxious to gauge the level of state support for the restructuring after the Russian government suspended a $50bn bail-out for Russian companies’ foreign debts as hard currency reserves dwindled. Mr Dmitriev said VEB and Rusal were not holding any talks either on restructuring the $4.5bn loan, which falls due at the end of October, or on an offer by Rusal to convert its nearly $7bn debt to state banks to a 16 per cent stake in the company in the form of non-voting preferred shares. He reiterated that the Russian government had no interest in taking over companies from private owners, but in a veiled reference at the heavy borrowings by Mr Deripaska, he said: “The state does not intend to replace private owners. But it’s a different matter that the state is interested in making sure that key Russian companies are managed adequately.”