Rusal yet to get approval for Hong Kong listing

HONG KONG - UC Rusal, the world's biggest aluminium producer, has yet to gain the approval of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for its planned listing here, a source said on Friday. The listing committee of the city's bourse operator decided in a meeting late Thursday to postpone making a decision on the metal manufacturing giant's application for a 2.5-billion-dollar initial public offering, the source told AFP. The committee wanted to wait for the completion of the company's 7.4-billion-dollar debt restructuring and needed more time to study the application documents, according to a report by Dow Jones Newswires. The report quoted a source as saying the company had a "high chance" of getting the green light for a flotation on the Hong Kong bourse by end of the year, as its debt restructuring was "99 percent complete". Representatives of Rusal are due to meet the listing committee again on December 3, according to Dow Jones. The economic crisis has left Rusal, owned by Russia's powerful billionaire Oleg Deripaska, with an estimated debt of 14 billion dollars and it has been in complex talks with its creditor banks to restructure the debts for months. Media reports said Rusal planned to list simultaneously on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the Paris bourse, part of the pan-European stock exchange Euronext. Russia's state Vneshekonom Bank, or VEB, which bailed out Rusal in late 2008, said earlier this month it might buy shares at the company's IPO, which would be the first time the Russian government has taken a stake in the group. If successful, Rusal will be the first Russian firm to list in Hong Kong. The listing would also be an achievement for the Hong Kong bourse operator, which has worked for years to attract companies from outside China to list. But the planned listing is complicated by allegations that Deripaska, who has not been charged with any criminal offence, was linked to organised crime. Reports said the allegations had prompted Washington to bar the tycoon from obtaining a visa to travel to the US for years. -- AFP