Abramovich and Potanin lost their trial with Deripaska in London

Oleg Deripaska won in the High Court of London over Vladimir Potanin and Roman Abramovich. The court decided that Abramovich and his partner Alexander Abramov had no right to sell Potanin part of their stake in Norilsk Nickel, Bloomberg reported. This transaction, as considered by the court, violates the terms of the shareholder agreement signed in 2012 by the parties.

Details

• Thus, UC Rusal managed to cancel the sale of a 2.1% stake in Norilsk Nickel in favor of Potanin.
• The main victims here are Abramovich and Abramov. They will have to expand the deal, as a result of which they received more than $ 770 million for their stake. Potanin, having returned his money, will not lose much - now 2.1% of Norilsk Nickel shares are much cheaper on the LSE - about £ 445 million or $ 585 million .

Context

• The conflict between the main shareholders of Norilsk Nickel at that time - Deripaska and Potanin flared up back in 2008, when the head of Rusal spoke for generous dividends, and Potanin for investment in development. Having bought out a minority stake in Norilsk Nickel, Abramovich reconciled them and in 2012 acted as a guarantor of the shareholder agreement. It secured high dividends, and also provided for a ban on reducing Abramovich's stake to less than 2.5% until December 2017.
• In February, Potanin-controlled Bonico Holding Co. Ltd offered Roman Abramovich's Crispian to sell part of its stake in Norilsk Nickel - 4% (out of 6.3%). Crispian offered to buy out its stake in UC Rusal (owned 27.8% in Norilsk Nickel) and Potanin's second structure Whiteleave (owned 32.9% in Nornickel).
• UC Rusal Deripaska initially agreed to buy out 1.9% of Norilsk Nickel (in proportion to her stake in the company), but then considered the deal to be collusion due to the inflated price and its forced nature. According to Rusal, the sale of the stake to Potanin could upset the balance between Norilsk Nickel shareholders, enshrined in the 2012 shareholder agreement.
• In March, Crispian, Whiteleave and UC Rusal agreed not to interfere with the sale of 4% of Norilsk Nickel, agreeing that the deal could be canceled if the court found it inconsistent with the shareholder agreement.
• Potanin completed the purchase of his share of the stake (2.1%), but Deripaska argued that only a third party should be allowed to own these shares under the terms of the peace agreement.

Liana Faizova