Russian tycoon Deripaska's firms seek debt extension

MOSCOW, April 14 - Indebted Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska will ask lenders for another two to five years to repay debts incurred by companies within his Basic Element holding group, a senior Basic Element official told Reuters. Olga Zinovyeva, Basic Element's first deputy general director, said the total debt accumulated by those companies in which Basic Element owns a stake was about $20 billion. "We are not asking banks to lower their rates, but we are talking about prolonging loans for a period of two to five years," Zinovyeva said in an emailed response to questions. "In some instances, we are discussing the possibility of granting a grace period," she said. Basic Element, or Basel, controls assets including United Company RUSAL, the world's top aluminium producer, auto maker GAZ , several energy, construction, aviation, insurance firms, and other companies. Zinovyeva said Basel's total debt was lower than $20 billion, because the group does not own 100 percent of all of these companies. "Many of our companies have a comfortable debt level and some, like Ingosstrakh, do not have any debts," she said. She said, however, that UC RUSAL had debts of $16.8 billion. Of this, $7.4 billion is owed to foreign banks, $4.5 billion to Russian state-owned bank VEB and $2.1 billion to other Russian banks. UC RUSAL also owes $2.8 billion to tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov, but has agreed to exchange most of this debt for an increased share in the aluminium company. STANDSTILL AGREEMENT UC RUSAL last month signed a two-month standstill agreement on the $7.4 billion it owes to international banks, with a view to securing a long-term restructuring agreement. [ID:nL6502607] Zinovyeva said Basic Element did not plan to rely on state bailouts to repay its debts. "We are not counting on state money. We are counting only on ourselves," she said. "We believe the country, and we in the first place, need measures aimed at stimulating consumer demand. We need to unfreeze credit markets, which will permit the private sector to survive in these unprecedented conditions of falling markets." She said banks were not interested in bankrupting companies, and were interested only in their own survival and profits.