BTS-Most Holding offers to buy minority shareholders in gold miner UGC out for 74.25 kopecks per share

MOSCOW. Aug 17 (Interfax) - BTS-Most Holding has offered to buy minority shareholders out of gold miner Uzhuralzoloto Group of Companies (UGC) for 74.25 kopecks per share, the company said in a disclosure.

This is the average weighted share price on the Moscow Exchange for six months prior to the offer.

The offer expires in 70 days.

UGC shares rose 3% on the news, from 67 kopecks to 69 kopecks per share on the exchange. The shares closed Friday at 67.05 kopecks.

The market had expected this sort of offer price. Analysts at Vector Capital expected 72.4 kopecks per share.

The offer applies to 32.8% of UGC shares. BTS-Most Holding, controlled by Ruslan Baysarov, received the other 67.2% in the middle of July after winning an auction for the stake in June. It said soon after that UGC would be renamed BTS-Gold.

UGC is one of Russia's biggest gold miners. It has two hubs - Urals, in the Chelyabinsk region, and Siberia in the Krasnoyarsk territory and Khakassia.