Translated material
Deripaska's plan
RUSAL first of all needs to get rid of its debt burden
Yesterday at a press conference, the main owner of RUSAL, Oleg Deripaska, denied information that had recently appeared that Vladislav Solovyov, who was appointed first deputy general director of the company, could later replace him as general director. According to Mr. Deripaska, he intends to remain the head of the aluminum giant “for quite some time.”RUSAL plans to increase aluminum production capacity by no more than 100 thousand tons in the first half of 2010 and by 332 thousand in 2011. But RUSAL will continue to implement key projects - the construction of the Boguchansky and Taishet aluminum smelters. Thus, the first stage of the Boguchansky plant with a capacity of 186 thousand tons is expected to be launched in September 2011, and a month later the Taishet plant will be put into operation, the capacity of the first stage of which will be 146 thousand tons.
However, the company's stable development is currently being held back by its impressive debt - $12.9 billion. RUSAL's management believes that this is a temporary situation. According to the company's director for capital markets Oleg Mukhamedshin, RUSAL will continue to repay debts to creditors ahead of schedule during 2010. “If cash flow continues to grow, we will get ahead of the debt repayments,” he said at a press conference. Now, according to him, the company is already paying off the debt about a year ahead of schedule.
“If tomorrow the company cannot meet its obligations to the banks, then I will be torn to pieces,” Mr. Deripaska said in an interview with Bloomberg. Now, according to him, RUSAL's priority is getting rid of the debt burden and improving operating results. Having resolved these issues, the businessman will have more opportunities to take part in the management of other assets, in particular Norilsk Nickel, in which RUSAL owns a blocking stake. Thus, during yesterday's press conference, Mr. Deripaska noted that he expects to be elected to the new board of directors of Norilsk Nickel (the shareholders meeting will be held at the end of June). According to Mr. Deripaska, his desire to join the board of directors does not contradict the Norilsk Nickel shareholder agreement concluded in 2008, according to which the beneficiaries of these companies should not be included in the management bodies of MMC. Mr. Deripaska does not know whether other shareholders hold a similar opinion and whether they intend to run for the board of directors of Norilsk Nickel. The businessman emphasized that RUSAL’s plans do not include increasing its stake in Norilsk Nickel “due to the financial situation in the company.” He explained that an increase in the share entails the obligation to make an offer to other shareholders of the company to buy out shares from them, and RUSAL is not yet ready for this.
Meanwhile, Oleg Deripaska himself, as Bloomberg and the Financial Times reported yesterday, intends to donate two-thirds of his $62 million bonus received for the company’s successful IPO in Hong Kong in January of this year to charity. According to Mr. Deripaska, the money that he will receive in two years for selling the bonus 50.6 million shares will go to his Volnoye Delo charitable foundation (which deals with social programs in the regions where RUSAL operates). In January, as is known, RUSAL received $2.2 billion during an IPO in Hong Kong, becoming the first company to place its shares on this site. Prior to this, RUSAL carried out the largest debt restructuring in the history of private business in Russia, amounting to $16.8 billion.