Yevgeny Ivanov said the sum from the sale of shares in Gold Fields Ltd. would be spent on exploration of the company's new deposits.
Polyus is the largest gold mining company in Russia, accounting for around 20% of the country's gold output. Output in 2004 was around 33.75 tons, but that figure is expected to rise to about 100 tons/yr by 2010, making the company one of the world's top five gold producers.
The company's assets include gold fields in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Magadan Region of Russia's Far East and the Irkutsk Region in Eastern Siberia.
Norilsk Nickel shareholders voted at a meeting on September 30, 2005 to form Polyus Zoloto by divesting Norilsk's gold-mining assets - held through a closed joint-stock company Polyus - into a separate legal entity.