Polyus Gold Int'l pays off $460 mln in VTB, Societe Generale loans
MOSCOW. May 18 (Interfax) - Polyus Gold International Ltd. (PGIL), the controlling shareholder in OJSC Polyus Gold , has paid off to credits extended by VTB Bank and Societe Generale to the tune of $230 million each, the company announced on Friday.
Polyus Gold agreed on a $500 million credit line with Societe Generale in September of last year. The company only used $230 million of the available amount.
Agreement on a $300 VTB credit line was also reached last September, and the company likewise only used $230 million of that.
Polyus Gold used both credits to finance the purchase of shares from OJSC Polyus Gold minority holders.
Following an RTO (reverse takeover) in 2011 and the purchase of shares, either on-market or through an offer, PGIL (the former KazakhGold) controls 95.3% in OJSC Polyus Gold, which is Russia's biggest gold production company. The company is developing ore and placer deposits in Krasnoyarsk Territory, Irkutsk, Magadan and Amur Regions, and Yakutia. In addition, the company has Kazakh and Kyrgyz assets that earlier belonged to KazakhGold. PGIL produced 1.5 million troy ounces of gold in 2011.
According to the company, the main beneficiaries in PGIL on December 31, 2011, were Suleiman Kerimov's Nafta Moskva with 40.2% and Mikhail Prokhorov's Onexim with 37.8%.