Behind every billionaire there is a story!

Web of mystery surrounds Rusal listing

When Oleg Deripaska’s UC Rusal floated plans for a $9bn-plus listing last year, the share issue from the outset was a test case for whether a company forged out of an industry once wracked with crime could win a London listing.

The flotation had already been delayed last September when its shareholders - including Mr Deripaska, who owns 66 per cent of UC Rusal via his vast Basic Element industrial conglomerate - cited poor market conditions for the postponement.

Now, as Rusal moves to expand via a merger with Norilsk Nickel, the suggestion by a senior executive at Basic Element that the company could seek a listing in Hong Kong over London because of tightening regulatory requirements suggests deeper-seated problems are to blame.

The float of what is one of the world’s biggest aluminium producers has been dogged by legal claims from the start.

But by far the biggest shadow has been cast by Michael Cherney, a controversial founding father of Russia’s aluminium industry, who has laid claim to a 20 per cent stake in UC Rusal, the holding he claims is owed from what he describes as a 50-50 partnership with Mr Deripaska for most of the 1990s.

read the rest published by FT here:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c5d734dc-c954-11dc-9807-000077b07658.html