Behind every billionaire there is a story!

Five of Russia’s richest 12 men to form a mining giant !

Billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s holding company ZAO Metalloinvest, Russia’s largest producer of iron ore, wants to combine with OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel to create an $85 billion mining company.  Metalloinvest has “great interest” in a merger, Chief Executive Officer Maxim Gubiev told reporters in Moscow today.   A merger would bind together the interests of five of Russia’s richest 12 men. Mikhail Prokhorov is ending his partnership with Vladimir Potanin and selling most of his 29 percent stake in Norilsk to United Co. Rusal, the world’s biggest aluminum company.Rusal is controlled by Oleg Deripaska, Russia’s richest man, according to Finans magazine. Viktor Vekselberg, a Rusal shareholder, is Russia’s ninth richest man. Potanin and Prokhorov are sixth and seventh, respectively, and Usmanov is 12th with an estimated fortune of $13.3 billion, Finans said this week.

read the rest published by Bloomberg here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aVMUgZwJr7Q8