Mazepin not the only UralChem owner
MOSCOW. March 11 (Interfax) - Preparations for UralChem's IPO have revealed that Dmitry Mazepin is not the fertilizer producer's only owner, the Vedomosti newspaper reports.
Vedomosti said it had learned from an employee of a bank organizing UralChem's IPO that Andrei Zherebtsov, a long-standing partner of formerly influential government officials, is UralChem's minority shareholder.
Two of Zherebtsov's acquaintances contacted him at Vedomosti's request, and he confirmed to them that he owned about 10% in the company, which means that his stake may be worth $200 million to $300 million, based on UralChem's valuation for the IPO, the paper said.
Several market sources have told Interfax that Zherebtsov might hold shares in Uralchem Holding on behalf of his business partner Vladimir Malin, a former Russian Federal Property Fund chief.
UralChem has said in a presentation, seen by Interfax, that Mazepin owns 86% of the Cyprus-registered Uralchem Holding. The holding owns 99.999% of UralChem itself. The presentation does not disclose Mazepin's partners in Uralchem Holding.
Shares in Uralchem Holding will be offered in the London IPO that UralChem is planning this spring.
Andrei Zherebtsov was a partner at the law firm Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasiev & Partners (EPA&P), from 1991 to 2006. He worked for the Gorizont investment company in 1998-2003. Gazprom owns 39% of Gorizont, which has acted as consultant for the Russian gas giant for ruble- and forex-denominated bond offerings, mergers and acquisitions and investment projects.
Zherebtsov, together with other Gorizont top managers, as well as Vladimir Malin and Alexander Voloshin, former chief of the Russian presidential administration, were among the founders of ASMK, a firm that owns 33.3% of Gorizont.
In 2004, when Malin was chairman of the Russian Federal Property Fund, the Fund sold around 38.8% of the shares in OJSC Kirovo-Chepetsky Chemicals Plant to a company called Fintrastkom. Dmitry Mazepin's holding received the asset in 2005.