RUSAL agrees $7.4 bln debt restructuring -sources

* Top aluminium firm reaches deal with 70+ creditors * British fund Blue Crest last to agree - sources * Formal announcement expected in near future By Oksana Kobzeva and Robin Paxton MOSCOW, Dec 2 (Reuters) - UC RUSAL secured agreement with creditors in Russia's biggest ever debt restructuring, paving the way for the indebted aluminium group to raise about $2 billion in a share issue, banking sources said on Wednesday. UC RUSAL, controlled by industrial magnate Oleg Deripaska, ended almost a year of tortuous negotiations on its $7.4 billion foreign debt when a British fund agreed this week to join over 70 international lenders in the restructuring, the sources said. "Approval has been received from the final creditor," said one of three banking sources who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. "The agreement will be signed in the near future." Deripaska, Russia's richest man before the financial crisis, built UC RUSAL into the world's largest aluminium producer before a collapse in global metals prices left the company unable to service debts that now exceed $16 billion. The company's success in restructuring the foreign portion of this debt is viewed by many analysts as a bellwether of investor appetite for prolonged exposure to Russian risk in a country where the state is unlikely to give up key assets held as collateral. UC RUSAL spokeswoman Vera Kurochkina declined to comment. Calls outside office hours to Blue Crest in London, the fund named by sources as the last to agree, were not answered. UC RUSAL plans to list about 10 percent of its shares in Hong Kong and Paris this year or early next and has already secured state support for the IPO. State bank VEB, another major creditor, has pledged to buy a 3 percent stake when it floats. VEB is prepared to buy the stake at a price valuing UC RUSAL at between $16.3 billion and $20.9 billion, a government source told Reuters on Nov. 19. Funds raised will help the company pay down some of its debt pile, but the IPO could not go ahead until the debt deal with international lenders was agreed. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who confirmed VEB's intentions on Nov. 25, said Deripaska could surrender majority ownership of UC RUSAL when the deal goes ahead, although he would retain operational control of the firm. (Additional reporting by Dmitry Sergeyev in Moscow and Christopher Mangham in London)