Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov received a proposal to sell their stake in MMC Norilsk Nickel (6.5%) with a premium to the market from a certain structure of Interros Vladimir Potanin (30.4% of MMC), not participating in the shareholder agreement of Norilsk Nickel ". This led to the fact that Abramovich and Abramov's Crispian Investments sent out offers to Interros and Oleg Deripaska's RusAl (27.8%), who have the preemptive right to repurchase the shares of Crispian. Interros declares its readiness to redeem the stake, Rusal is contesting the deal in court. At the same time, representatives of companies in the High Court of London have already agreed to agree on a schedule and conditions for the purchase of Crispian.
Rusal of Oleg Deripaska and partners, who owns a 27.8% stake in Norilsk Nickel, filed a lawsuit with the Commercial Court of the High Court of London against Cyprus's Whiteleave Holdings Limited, controlled by the owner of Interros Vladimir Potanin - this company participates in the ownership structure of the businessman shares of Norilsk Nickel "(30.4%), as well as Rosa Khutor and Interros.
The suit is connected with Interros' offer to buy out shares of Norilsk Nickel from Crispian Investments Ltd of Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov (businessmen own 6.5% of MMC, of them directly to Crispian - 4.2%), Bloomberg reports. Now the entire package of businessmen is worth about $ 2 billion, and the Crispian package is $ 1.35 billion.
Interros was confirmed by Kommersant that they made a proposal to Crispian and "received a counter offer from Crispian in accordance with the shareholders' agreement of Norilsk Nickel." A similar proposal sent Crispian and "Rusal". In "Interros" they say that "they consider Rusal's claim to be groundless and the interests of Rusal are not infringed." Representatives of "Rusal" ignored the calls of "Kommersant". Millhouse Roman Abramovich and Invest AG Alexander Abramov declined to comment.
At the same time, according to Kommersant's information, initially a third party interested in the Crispian package was not involved in the shareholder agreement of Norilsk Nickel, and its offer contains a premium to the market.
Then Crispian notified Interros and Rusal, which have a preemptive right of redemption, now they must offer as much or more to the shares of MMC as the "third party" offered. Who is this applicant, "b" to find out yet failed.
During the court hearing on the lawsuit filed by Rusal against Whiteleave, information was provided to Kommersant that RusAl and Interros received proposals from Crispian as an exercise of their pre-emptive right to buy the first refusal offer from Mr Abramovich and Abramov. As a Kommersant correspondent reports from the courtroom, a representative of Whiteleave told during the meeting that the deadline for accepting the first refusal offer expires today, on February 16, but more time is needed for the transaction.
Whiteleave suggested extending the Crispian until March 8, a representative of Rusal, who agreed that 24 hours for accepting the offer is uncomfortable, proposed to extend it until February 22.
At the same time after the meeting, a representative of Rusal in the court specified to Kommersant that the original offer of Crispian was filed by the subsidiary structure of Whiteleave, and the representative of the latter confirmed this information to Kommersant. But the representatives of the companies did not answer the questions of Kommersant about the essence of the litigation. In court, they agreed to agree on a schedule and conditions for redemption, and a representative of Rusal said that this should be done before the shareholders meeting ("Norilsk Nickel" .- "Kommersant") in June, the "Kommersant" correspondent reports. The next hearing will take place in the week beginning March 5.
Two sources of Kommersant believe that Crispian shareholders decided to "go into the cache" by fulfilling a five-year commitment as a "white knight" under a shareholder agreement, but another source from Kommersant assures that businessmen like the company and, if there is no deal now , they will not look for buyers themselves.
According to Kommersant sources familiar with the situation, the Crispian package is in some ways the key to control over Norilsk Nickel, although one of them calls not to overestimate the impact of the package taking into account the role of Vladimir Potanin as managing partner. "Norilsk Nickel" is first of all the economy of "Interros", said earlier "Kommersant" and another interlocutor who is familiar with the company's business.
If Interros and RusAl do not want to start a third corporate war (the second one ended in 2012 with the arrival of Roman Abramovich) and launch a Russian roulette to buy each other's packages, the shareholder agreement allows Norilsk Nickel's majority shareholders to split the Crispian package and related structures, reminds one of the sources of Kommersant. Another interlocutor of Kommersant says that, according to his information, the lawsuit of Rusal to the Interros structure is rather an operational requirement of some security measures, rather than the beginning of a large-scale legal process.