MOSCOW (Reuters) - Glencore (L:GLEN) will swap its 8.75 percent stake in Russian aluminium giant Rusal (HK:0486) for shares in En+ Group, an aluminium and hydropower group controlled by tycoon Oleg Deripaska, En+ said on Wednesday.
En+ Group plans to raise $1.5 billion (1.14 billion pounds) in an initial public share offering (IPO) in London and Moscow in November, testing investors' appetite for Russian assets three years after Western countries imposed sanctions on Moscow over its role in the Ukraine crisis. "We are delighted at the prospect of gaining the long-term support of such a well-renowned partner in the global commodities sector. We look forward to working with Glencore and leveraging its unrivalled expertise to drive the ongoing growth of our business," Maxim Sokov, En+'s chief executive, said in a statement.The swap with miner and trader Glencore will occur after En+ completes its IPO, the Russian group said.
En+'s stake in Rusal, one of the world's largest aluminium producers, will rise to 56.88 percent from the current 48.13 percent as a result of the conversion.
Glencore will be entitled to appoint its chief executive to the board of directors of En+ after the share swap. The price and Glencore's stake in En+ have yet to be determined.For Glencore, the deal gives access to Rusal's aluminium assets integrated with power assets, said Oleg Petropavlovskiy, an analyst at BCS investment bank.
Glencore has previously said it will do deals opportunistically and is particularly keen on assets relevant to the expected boom in electric vehicles, which could include aluminium, and which offer the chance to optimise existing assets.For En+, the deal might give potential investors confidence before its upcoming IPO, but is unlikely to offset the effect of deals by Rusal's other shareholders, which recently sold Rusal shares worth more than $300 million, the analyst added.Russian tycoons Mikhail Prokhorov and Viktor Vekselberg sold a 3 percent stake in Rusal via an accelerated bookbuilding for $315 million earlier in October.