Abramovich firm offers to buy Norilsk Nickel treasury shares for $158 mln
MOSCOW. April 12 (Interfax) - A firm controlled by Roman Abramovich and his business partners has offered to buy quasi-treasury shares worth $158 million from MMC Norilsk Nickel .
Norilsk Nickel said in a press release that its board of directors would "review a proposal from Crispian Investments Limited to sell all of the company's treasury shares at market price."
"An offer has been made to Norilsk Nickel to sell all of its 1,250,075 ordinary shares (0.79% of total share capital of Norilsk Nickel), which were purchased as part of the share buyback program in 2015 and are held currently as treasury, for a total consideration of $158 million or $12.63 per ADR. In accordance with best corporate governance practices the transaction will be reviewed by independent directors at the audit committee and will be considered for approval by the board of directors," the company said.
Currently, Crispian is a 5.5% shareholder in Norilsk Nickel.
At the end of April 2013, Vladimir Potanin's Interros and Oleg Deripaska's Rusal completed a deal to sell some shares in Norilsk Nickel to Crispian Investments Limited. Crispian's stake in Norilsk Nickel following the transaction and the cancellation of the whole quasi-treasury stake was 5.87%.
In addition to its shares, Abramovich's company got the right to vote with 15% of shares owned by Interros and Rusal held in an escrow account.
Interros owns 30.3% of Norilsk Nickel, Rusal has 27.8% and Metalloinvest owns 3.2%.
