http://www.mineweb.co.za/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/...d=40528&sn=Detail
...This week, at a party-political rally in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin also referred to the rule of oligarchs as rapacious dogs. "They want to come back," he said, of the factions which had ruled Russia during the Yeltsin period, "to return to power, to spheres of influence, and gradually restore oligarchic rule based on corruption and lies. Unfortunately, inside the country there are those who scrounge at foreign embassies, importune diplomatic missions, count on the support of foreign funds and governments, and not the support of their own people."
A day later, Mikhail Prokhorov summoned the Financial Times - the newspaper whose reporting had celebrated oligarch rule a decade ago-to lay out his terms for sale of a 25%+1-share stake in Norilsk Nickel at $330.30 per share, amounting to 47.7 million shares for US$15.7 billion in cash, agreed within 30 days, and delivered within 45.
If his co-shareholder and former partner Vladimir Potanin couldn't come good with the money, Prokhorov has also pulled out the Khrushchev shoe ploy, banging the table with the threat that he has another buyer, oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who might come good with the money. Deripaska controls the Basic Element holding, and United Company Rusal, the aluminum maker which failed to launch a LSE listing this year.
The unlisted Rusal may have a market capitalization of US$30 million, of which Deripaska's share would be less then $20 billion, on paper. Norilsk Nickel, the world's leading producer of nickel and palladium, is listed with a sizeable free float. It has a current market value of $53.7 billion. That is up 77% since January, but down 6% in the past week. Even the Russian market can find the barking of jackals unappealing.
Deripaska--who has been short of cash himself as he faces multiple liabilities, pay claims, and an asset divorce--ought to have considerably more difficulty in raising Prokhorov's cash than Potanin, unless the Russian state funds the deal. For that to happen, Putin would have to be personally persuaded that the Russian national champion in aluminum could be coupled with the national champion in nickel, and Rusal would skip its LSE listing altogether.
Putin's attack on the oligarchs this week was his first in a long time. Its political significance can be interpreted as a revival of Putin's last presidential campaign attack, in 2003-2004, on the oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. ....Prokhorov is guessing that if he strews enough meat in the path of the lion, the jackals can bark, but do no more.
He cannot have been thinking of Putin's latest warning, nor of the Kremlin's view of the London media, when he placed his sale offer in the FT. But then Prokhorov's biggest disadvantage in the division of Norilsk Nickel's assets, under way since January, is that Prokhorov lacks a Kremlin backer and Putin's endorsement.
Therefore, Prokhorov has applied through the FT for permission to sell through an oligarch he imagines might be better connected than himself to the Kremlin. He is also guessing that, at this stage of the Russian election cycle - parliamentary elections in two weeks' time, the presidential election in four months - his asking price might generate more than the normal level of appetite for a quick deal. At $15.7 billion, Prokhorov's offer is 8% bigger than the price at which another Yeltsin-era oligarch, Roman Abramovich, sold his oil company Sibneft to Gazprom; until now, that has been the biggest transfer of an oligarch resource asset back to the state on market terms....The Kremlin's general attitude towards Prokhorov's pricing was made clear a few days ago, when Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin announced that Alrosa, the wholly state-owned diamond miner, wouldn't consider Prokhorov's offer of his stake in Polyus Gold. He said the reason is that Prokhorov is asking too much. Kudrin is a soft and kindly fellow; there are others in the Kremlin who may take the view that Prokhorov is a concessionaire of both Norilsk Nickel and Polyus, not a proprietor in the usual sense. The hint is that Prokhorov's asset acquisition history, his tax records, and other archives might recommend that he voluntarily lower his demand, before he is legally obligated to do so.
The Prokhorov-Onexim proposal that is now public indicates a demand for a premium of 12% to 17% over the pre-offer market price. It is almost 10% over most Moscow brokers' projections of Norilsk Nickel's target price. In cutting the share price to $278.50 on Thursday, the Russian market is calculating Prokhorov should accept a discount of 16% http://www.mineweb.co.za/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/...d=40528&sn=Detail
übrigens will er offenbar auch Polyus Gold gerne loswerden, und er will Cash bevor er in die weihnachlichen Skiferien nach Frankreich fährt....
da fragt man sich schon ,ob sich jemand rechtzeitig in Sicherheit bringen will
Beresovski wurde letzte Woche in Absentia wegen Veruntreuung bei Aeroflot zu 6 Jahren Haft verurteilt http://www.net-tribune.de/article/291107-169.php
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