Rusal speculation grows as life turns nasty for Russian oligarchs

摘要

Suggestions that Roman Abramovich might sell the 50-percent share of Rusal that he controls put the Moscow rumour mill into overdrive this week. Unconfirmed reports - covered in MB and discussed at length in the Russian media - suggested that Abramovich was in talks about selling up to Oleg Deripaska, who owns the other 50 percent of Rusal through his company Base Element. No hard evidence emerged, but suggestions of another possible buyer did. A Moscow-based banker who works with metals companies said: "The talk in the market is that Base Element could not find 3 billion dollars to buy out Abramovich. On the other hand the Alfa ACCESS Renova (AAR) group [which owns Sual] will have large sums of spare cash after the merger of TNK [oil company] with BP."