Behind every billionaire there is a story!

Mechel Declines Comment After Putin Rebuke Sends Stock Plunging

OAO Mechel, Russian billionaire Igor Zyuzin’s coal and steel producer, declined to comment on a rebuke by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that wiped $6 billion off the company’s market value.

”We’ll release a statement later today,” Mechel spokesman Ilya Zhitomirsky said by phone in Moscow.

Mechel’s New York-traded American depositary receipts plunged 38 percent after Putin castigated Zyuzin for not appearing at a meeting and urged regulators to investigate the company for overcharging other steelmakers for raw materials. The stock closed at $22.84, valuing the company at $9.5 billion.

Zyuzin “has suddenly fallen ill,” Putin said late yesterday at a steel meeting in Nizhny Novgorod that was broadcast on state television. The former president urged the chief executive officer to get well soon, “otherwise, we’ll need to send him a doctor and clean up all these problems.”

read the rest published by Bloomberg here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aN.Obu8Yzxjc