The protracted deal for the buyout of Victor Vekselberg's and Leonard Blavatnik's Sual Partners shares of Rusal's shares from ONEXIM Mikhail Prokhorov is finally close to closure. Sual Partners will buy 7% of RusAl for $ 504 million from ONEKSIM, increasing its stake in the company to 22.8% and avoiding an offer to minority shareholders. According to Kommersant sources, in the autumn, Mikhail Prokhorov will sell the remaining 6.7% of Rusal to the market, and 3% may buy the bank, and the market does not exclude that these securities will be purchased in the interests of one of the shareholders of Rusal.

As it became known to Kommersant, ONEXIM Mikhail Prokhorov in the coming months could completely withdraw from the capital of Rusal. According to a Kommersant source familiar with the situation, ONEXIM plans to sell the remaining 6.7% of the company's shares in September-October - ahead of the November rebalancing of the MSCI index. According to him, the package will be sold to the market, and there are preliminary agreements that about 3% of the shares can be redeemed by one of the banks. The main creditor of "Rusal" is Sberbank; He and VTB are the main creditors of En + (VTB owns over 4% of the group), while Vneshtorgbank's ONEXIM package was placed in Rusal. The shares of the Quadra company, owned by ONEKSIM, are pledged to Gazprombank and Sberbank, and Renaissance of Credit shares to Alfa Bank. But sources, "Kommersant", close to these banks, did not hear about the plans to buy shares in "Rusal". One of them does not rule out that the bank can buy back securities in the interests of one of the shareholders of the aluminum company.

On Friday, it became known that Zonoville Investments Limited, affiliated with Sual Partners Victor Vekselberg and Leonard Blavatnik (owns 15.8% of the shares of Rusal), entered into an agreement to buy out 7% of Rusal for $ 503.88 million from Dimosenco Holdings Co. Limited to Mikhail Prokhorov. This was reported by the aluminum company. The deal will not violate the terms of the existing shareholder agreement of "Rusal", specified in the message. The share of Sual in "Rusal", thus, will be 22.8%, while ONEXIM will have 6.7% of the shares after the transaction. The deal will take place at a price of HK $ 3.7 per share - with a 30% discount to the closing price of Rusal on Thursday, August 10.

The fact that Sual can "buy within a month a package of ONEXIM in an aluminum company (then 17%), Viktor Vekselberg said in September 2016 in an interview with Bloomberg. Earlier sources familiar with the situation said that Said Kerimov was also interested in the package (controlled by Polyus), but offered to redeem it at a discount, while Sual gave a 10% premium to the market (17% of Rusal was valued for the deal in $ 1 billion). But Sual wanted to buy out only 12%, so as not to exceed the threshold of 30% and not make an offer, the sources told Vedomosti and confirmed the interlocutors of Kommersant. The deal stalled, and ONEXIM sold 3.32% of RusAl's shares to the market in February for $ 240 million (the same as HK $ 3.7 per share), which, as Kommersant sources suggested, after a three-month lock-up could Follow the deal with Sual.

Kommersant correspondents, close to the shareholders of Rusal and their creditors, told Kommersant in June that Mikhail Prokhorov does not want to sell securities at a price lower than February's and the dialogue is suspended, but stressed that there are no time frames and Sual approved the February sale of ONEXIM Of shares in the market. Why now the parties have agreed only about 7% of "Rusal" is unclear. In ONEXIM and "Rusal" declined to comment, the representative of Sual was unavailable.

Viktor Vekselberg and En + Oleg Deripaska's group (48.13% of Rusal shares) have repeatedly had conflicts, in particular, around the sale of Norilsk Nickel. But the interlocutor of Kommersant, who is familiar with the position of En +, said this summer that there is no conflict between the shareholders, and an increase in Sual's stake in Rusal will not strengthen its legal position. By agreement of shareholders, the company has a veto and seats on the board of directors. In En + on Friday declined to comment.

If aluminum prices remain at $ 2,000 per ton, then taking into account dividends from Norilsk Nickel, Rusal will be able to receive about $ 1.7 billion of free cash flow per year after interest payments, Oleg Petropavlovskiy from BCS estimates. Obviously, in this case, Rusal will be able to pay dividends more often and Sual's investments will pay off faster, he says. In his opinion, it's not entirely correct to talk about the 30% discount to Rusal quotations for Onexim and Sual, given the long-standing arrangements of the parties and the significant growth of Rusal's securities for the month on industry news. At the same time, he believes that Sual would be worth increasing the stake to blocking.