Interros gets offer to buy into Alrosa IPO, thinks this an interesting idea
MOSCOW. April 19 (Interfax) - Vladimir Potanin's Interros is thinking of participating in an upcoming IPO by Alrosa , during which the diamond miner will sell 14% of its shares.
The governments of Russia and Yakutia, the mineral-rich internal Russian republic where Alrosa is based, will each sell 7% of Alrosa at the end of the year. The government recently mandated Goldman Sachs to organize the deal, and preliminary consultations with investors are under way. One of them could be Interros, a source with knowledge of preparations for the IPO told Interfax.
Interros considers this to be an interesting offer as Alrosa is a unique company, a source close to Interros told Interfax. Interros is prepared to look at this in more detail once it receives the necessary documents, the source said.
The sources did not say how many shares Interros might buy.
Representatives of Interros and Alrosa declined to comment.
Interros does not always act as a strategic investor - it acts in some deals as an ordinary investment fund. It made a bid last year for shares in an IPO by the Mother and Child clinic as a purely portfolio investment. Interros's strategy is to by major shareholdings with a role in management - it has at various times been the majority shareholder in Rosbank , Polyus Gold , Power Machines and Perm Motors , and was part of the Mustcom consortium that bought 25% of Svyazinvest in 1997.
But its biggest asset is around 30% of MMC Norilsk Nickel , the world's biggest nickel and palladium producer. Reports have said Norilsk and Alrosa, the world's biggest diamond producer, could have tied up in 2005-2006 when various merger options were under discussion, but this never came to fruition.
The sale of part of the government stake in Alrosa is in the privatization plan for 2011-2013.
There are plans to sell the 14% stake in an IPO on the Moscow Exchange. After the sale is complete, Russia's stake in the company will be reduced from 50.92% to 43.9%, and the Republic of Yakutia's - from 32% to 25% plus one share. Russia expects to receive 12 billion-24 billion rubles by selling between 7% and 14% of Alrosa, according to materials for a cabinet meeting that discussed privatization at the end of October last year.
The Russian Federal Property Agency (Rosimuschestvo) holds 50.92% of Alrosa's shares, Yakutia's Property Relations Ministry owns 32%, eight districts of Yakutia own 8% and individuals and corporate bodies own the remaining 9.07%, including Alrosa subsidiaries more than 2%. Reports say Suleiman Kerimov's Nafta Moskva bought 1% at the end of last year. Alrosa management owns 0.18%, including company president Fyodor Andreyev with 0.11% and vice president Sergei Pushkin with 0.05%.
