Deripaska Nears Deal to Retain Empire, Report Says

Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska is close to agreements to reorganize his companies’ multibillion-dollar debts, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing an interview with a senior official within Deripaska’s Basic Element holding group. Such agreements should allow Mr. Deripaska’s empire to survive without losing control of its major assets, the newspaper cited the official as saying. “We’re now in the position where, except for a few difficult situations, we think the businesses will make it,” Olga Zinovieva, first deputy chief executive of Basic Element, told The Journal. “The acute phase is past, and if we sign binding documents with creditors, the situation will be normalized and the businesses will get through it calmly,” Ms. Zinovieva told the newspaper. Basic Element, or Basel, controls assets including United Company RUSAL, the world’s top aluminum producer, auto maker GAZ, several energy, construction, aviation and insurance firms, and other companies. Basic Element told Reuters in April that Mr. Deripaska would ask lenders for another two to five years to repay debts incurred by companies within the holding group, and said the total debt accumulated by those companies in which Basic Element owned a stake was about $20 billion.