In addition Rusal is not in a brilliant form

The Russian (4.4 million tonnes delivered in 2008) aluminum giant Rusal, attempts to introduce on the Paris stock exchange. Controlled mostly by the young Tycoon Oleg Deripaska (41 years) would be good to place in the coming days a prospectus with the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) to obtain the authorization of rating at the Palais Brongniart, confirming part of the information published Monday by "Le Figaro".

If he obtained the green light, Paris would become its second place rating after Hong Kong, selected as a main market ("Les Echos" of October 8). The Chinese State competitor Chinalco would accede to the offer.

Well informed sources emphasize that Rusal has chosen Hong Kong and Paris to ensure "a continuous rating of Title 24 hours". The firm will be listed on the two markets before the end of the year. The Moscow stock exchange would have been negated due to "not very favourable" market conditions, said a bank source.

Non-guaranteed success

The operation aims to raise about $ 3 billion by placement of the order of 10 to 15 of the capital. The call to the Parisian market will be exclusively by "a placement targeting to qualified investors.

Individual shareholders there will thus not access. It is true that the success of the introduction is not guaranteed at this stage. Aluminium market is sluggish, leaded by structural surpluses of the offer which might last several years, according to JP Morgan. Opinion however partially contradicted by a recent report from Deutsche Bank.

In addition, Rusal is not in a brilliant form. His boss and majority shareholder, Oleg Deripaska, is a fictional character also discreet that controversial. The summer, his attempt to move from London to Moscow a lawsuit filed against him by one of his former business partners has failed. His investment company has lost a lot of money during the crisis, which forced him, among other things, to divest its shareholdings in Hochtief and Magma.

Initiative imposed

To Rusal, net debt would approach the $ 17 billion for a firm whose recovery is estimated at 30 billion dollars in the best cases. Affected by trolling aluminum prices, operating margin of the Group would have melted, according to Nomura, from a comfortable 35 in 2008 to 14 in 2009 to probably go up to 24 in 2010. These elements really argue for an introduction on the stock market now.

But the quick rating is a condition that the foreign creditors of the Group were imposed there is a little more than two months to make its debt restructuring. International banks hold the credits granted to Rusal $ 7.5 billion. The remaining portion is owned by Russian financial institutions, including 4.5 billion State VEB Bank.

According to Troika Dialog, in the next four years, the Russian firm in difficulty must pay 1.5 billion dollars per year in the relevant foreign banks alone. These include several French institutions, including BNP Paribas. According to our sources, which would have facilitated the choice of Paris as secondary place of rating. Finally, in view of the structure of the appeal to the market, there are strong chances that creditor banks would take on this occasion a participation in the capital of Rusal. A rescue in good standing in short.