En + began preparations for an IPO. The holding wants to raise up to $1.5 billion by placing shares on the London and Hong Kong stock exchanges, as four people close to the participants of the meetings, held by the managers of En +, told Vedomosti. The stock exchange in Hong Kong, however, is undecided, adds one of the interlocutors.

Prices are not yet available: the process is at an early stage, Vedomosti interlocutors say. Two of them say that En + expects to be valued at $6-8 billion. Based on this price, in order to earn $1.5 billion, En + can offer 18.75 to 25% of its shares to the investors, depending on the assessment. Another interlocutor says that the expectations are higher, at $9-10 billion. Expectations are "between $5 billion and $10 billion," the fourth one notes.

Among the organizers of the placement is VTB Capital, said two interlocutors. In the most optimistic development of events, En + expects to be placed in April-May, adds one of them. The alternative is October-November. Potential investor of En + and a person close to one of the participants in the meeting, say that the organizer of the transaction was Sberbank.

Vedomosti's interlocutors do not specify, whether En + will offer the investors new shares or existing ones and whether VTB Capital will sell its 4.35% of the shares. Representatives of En + and VTB declined to comment. Attempts to get comments of Sberbank and its investment division Sberbank CIB on Wednesday evening failed.

En + owns Deripaska's assets in metallurgy, energy, mining. Among them, 48.13% of UC Rusal, the energy holding company Eurosibenergo (95.7% of Krasnoyarsk HPP, 90.5% of Irkutskenergo, etc.), the Krasnoyarsk Metallurgical Plant and the producer of ferromolybdenum Soyuzmetallresurs. On Wednesday, the share of En + in UC Rusal on the Hong Kong stock exchange was $3.7 billion, while the packages in Krasnoyarskaya HPP and Irkutskenergo on Tuesday at the Moscow Stock Exchange were 105.1 billion rubles. ($1.8 billion at the current exchange rate).

In 2011, when the world metal market recovered from the crisis, the holding was estimated at $11.5 billion to convert the debt of En + to VTB Capital. But then aluminum on the London Metal Exchange cost more than $2,700 per 1 ton, and over the last two years  the price dropped to $1600-1900 per 1 ton. The last six months the price has been rising.

In 2011, VTB First Deputy Chairman of the Board Yury Solovyov said about the deal: "We see a great growth potential for En + Group, which is primarily related to the development of cooperation between Russia and China in the energy, metallurgy and mining industries" (quoted by Interfax ). The opportunity to invest $500 million in En + shares was also considered by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RFPI), which was being created, Kommersant wrote.

In 2014, the head of En + Maxim Sokov told Vedomosti that he was conducting an audit of the portfolio of projects, selecting those that are most relevant to the future IPO. "The binding basis is energy. We would like to develop businesses from energy and further, into the next redistribution, into energy-intensive businesses," explained Sokov the En + strategy. In particular, the holding together with Huawei and Centrin Data Systems were going to create in Irkutsk a data center for 8000 racks. To start, it managed to agree with Huawei on the creation of the first stage for 100 racks - it is planned to launch it this year.

Among the assets of En + so far only Irkutskenergo brings stable dividends" about 5 billion rubles in 2014-2015 (payments for 2016 are not yet determined). UC Rusal only in 2015 renewed the payment of dividends: for the first nine months of 2015 and 2016. The aluminum holding paid out $250 million. En + promises to investors that if it gets an estimate of $8 billion, the dividend yield will be 3-3.5%, says a source close to one of the meeting participants.

Even $6-8 billion for the whole of En + is too expensive, two top managers of large investment funds investing in Russian securities express their skepticism. Holdings are always traded at a discount to the amount of their assets, recalls the top manager of another fund. For example, Sistema's capitalization on the London Stock Exchange is $4.1 billion, and only 50.3% of MTS shares on the New York Stock Exchange are worth $5 billion. The market would rather wait for En + estimates of $4-5 billion, says one of the interlocutors of Vedomosti.

However, there is interest in the papers of Russian companies. Since the beginning of the year, Fosagro held a secondary offering, Onexim Group sold part of the UC Rusal package. The general director of the RFPI, Kirill Dmitriev, told Interfax two weeks ago that a "window" for transactions of Russian companies opened, and for a long time.