The oligarchs melted

Potanin and Deripaska were unable to maintain control over Norilsk Nickel

Last year, a conflict developed in the metallurgical industry between two former partners - the head of Interros Vladimir Potanin and the head of Onexim Mikhail Prokhorov, who decided to divide their joint multi-billion dollar business, and this year a third participant appeared in their company - co-owner of RUSAL Oleg Deripaska .

In the spring of this year, RUSAL bought 25% plus two shares of Norilsk Nickel from Mr. Prokhorov, and in return he received cash and 14% of RUSAL shares (according to some sources, not yet completely). However, with the appearance of Mr. Deripaska among the shareholders of Norilsk Nickel, the conflict in Norilsk Nickel only worsened. Throughout the year, Mr. Potanin’s Interros (which had a majority of votes on the board of directors) blocked various initiatives of RUSAL, not allowing him to manage the company. And he even found a new partner - co-owner of Metalloinvest Alisher Usmanov, with whom he intended to create a joint mining and metallurgical company. However, this idea never came to fruition, and against the backdrop of the global financial crisis it turned out to be practically buried. Metalloinvest, not being a public company, had to conduct an IPO, which was virtually impossible to do during the crisis. And RUSAL came out quite harshly against the merger of companies.

However, forget the grievances and abandon the ambitions of Messrs. Potanin and Deripaska were forced by the financial crisis, when, against the backdrop of a decline in global consumption, the capitalization of companies began to fall rapidly, and loan debt grew at an alarming rate.

Thus, to purchase a blocking stake in Norilsk Nickel in April 2008, RUSAL attracted a syndicated loan from 11 Western banks in the amount of $4.5 billion, but due to the unfavorable situation on the market, it was unable to repay it. VEB came to the rescue by issuing a similar loan to cover this debt, secured by Norilsk Nickel shares. One of the terms of the loan was also an agreement between the parties that the governing bodies of RUSAL and Norilsk Nickel would include government representatives.

Thus, RUSAL initiated the re-election of the board of directors of the nickel giant and the expansion of its composition from nine to 13 people. Then the threat of losing control in the company loomed for the first time before Mr. Potanin’s Interros. However, already in December there was information on the market that Interros had pledged about 20% of Norilsk Nickel shares against a $3 billion loan from VEB, which brought the confrontation between the parties to naught. The state received the right to actually control about 50% of Norilsk Nickel.

The nickel giant's board of directors was re-elected at a meeting on December 26. Its composition expanded from nine to 13 people, and the position of chairman was taken by the former head of the presidential administration, former chairman of the board of directors of RAO UES of Russia, Alexander Voloshin. He immediately assured the market that although he had worked for a long time in the interests of the state, at Norilsk Nickel he intended to defend the interests of shareholders.

The page was prepared by Natalya ROMANOVA, Irina TSYRULEVA, Nikolay KOCHELYAGIN, Mikhail KUKUSHKIN, Andrey DENISOV