" Norilsk Nickel is a money-making machine," admitted Oleg Deripaska, CEO and co-owner of UC Rusal, in an interview with Bloomberg on November 10. The aluminum company, which owns 27.8% of Norilsk Nickel shares, expects to receive from the nickel company by 2018. a total of $4.5 billion in dividends, according to a presentation for investors. According to the latest agreements with Norilsk Nickel shareholders, the company must pay 50% of EBITDA, but at least $2 billion in dividends per year. In the worst-case scenario, UC Rusal will account for at least $555 million for the next four years.

But the aluminum company expects that Norilsk Nickel's EBITDA will grow by an average of 10-12% per year and by 2018 will amount to $3.5 billion, and accordingly, by this year UC Rusal's dividends will also increase to $988 (see chart) . In addition, UC Rusal expects Norilsk Nickel to pay special dividends ($1 billion from the sale of non-core assets). RMG Securities analyst Andrey Tretelnikov agrees that Norilsk Nickel's EBITDA and, accordingly, dividends, can be expected to grow. He predicts that Nickel prices in the medium term may rise by a third to $20,000 per ton.

Norilsk Nickel dividends are important for UC Rusal. In the first nine months of 2014, the company spent $637 million on interest payments for using the debt (UC Rusal's net debt at the end of the third quarter was $9.9 billion), 8.3% more than last year, according to the company's financial statements. Moreover, UC Rusal's debt is 92% denominated in dollars, so it cannot become much cheaper due to fluctuations in the ruble exchange rate, as happened with Mechel's net debt. As of early September, the debt Mechel's value was $8 billion, but by mid-October it had fallen to $7.7 billion.

Most likely, Norilsk Nickel's dividends will be enough to service UC Rusal's debt, and it will be possible to repay it from free cash flow, says Societe Generale analyst Sergei Donskoy. According to him, UC Rusal expects that the price of aluminum (yesterday a ton (was worth $2018) will be stably high, in addition, due to the market situation, premiums for immediate shipment of metal from warehouses of commodity exchanges may also increase (the premium on the LME yesterday was $510). In August, the metal rose in price on the London Stock Exchange to its highest in the last one and a half months. year $2114 per ton.

This is already allowing UC Rusal to improve its financial position: at the end of August, the company managed to agree on new refinancing terms with banks for two syndicated PXF loans for $4.75 billion and $400 million. Now the company has combined the two loans into one and will repay it by the end of 2018. , so UC Rusal's short-term debt at the end of the third quarter amounted to $532 million against $10.5 billion the quarter before (the debt in the second quarter increased several times due to the conditions of cross-default in the event of a breakdown in negotiations with the syndicate of banks), follows from the company's data. In addition In addition, for the first time since the second quarter of 2012, UC Rusal received positive free cash flow ($84 million) and for the first time the company’s EBITDA ($492 million) exceeded the value of the third quarter of 2011, according to a presentation by UC Rusal. “The positive dynamics of the aluminum market and our efforts to control costs and increase margins by increasing the output of value-added products allowed UC Rusal to show impressive financial results in the third quarter,” the company’s statement quoted Deripaska as saying.

Norilsk Nickel will service the debt of UC Rusal