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Moscow Court Blocks Sale of Norilsk, Polyus Shares

KM Invest, the holding company controlled by Russian billionaires Mikhail Prokhorov and Vladimir Potanin, was blocked by a court from selling a stake in OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel worth $1 billion.Moscow’s arbitration court blocked the sale of 2 percent of Norilsk and a 7.4 percent stake in Russian gold producer OAO Polyus Gold, Prokhorov’s Onexim Group said in an e-mailed statement today. KM Invest’s board approved the sale on Dec. 19 against Prokhorov’s will, Onexim said.

Potanin and Prokhorov, the nation’s fourth- and fifth- richest men, have been trying to split their jointly held assets for the past 11 months. Norilsk is Russia’s biggest mining company and Polyus is the nation’s biggest gold producer.

United Co. Rusal, the world’s second-biggest aluminum producer, has said it will seek to buy KM Invest’s Norilsk stake. Rusal, controlled by billionaire Oleg Deripaska, agreed last week to acquire a 25 percent stake in Norilsk that’s directly owned by Prokhorov and said it will pursue a takeover.

No one could immediately be reached for comment at the court. KM Invest spokesman Konstantin Voronstov declined to comment. Nina Dementsova, a spokeswoman for Potanin’s Interros Holding Co., declined to comment. Norilsk doesn’t comment on transactions between shareholders, said Elena Kovaleva, a company spokeswoman.

read the rest published by Bloomberg here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ah9d9rN.3i_Y