State-run Russian Technologies holding company plans to buy 4.7 billion rubles ($150.7 million) worth of debts of Volgograd steelmaker Krasny Oktyabr, its problem asset, from the country's top lenders Sberbank and Gazprombank, Kommersant business daily said on Friday.
"We have reached a principal agreement with the banks on the purchase of the debts. Lawyers are now working on the deals," Yevgeny Romanov, general director of RT-Metallurgia, which runs Krasny Oktyabr for Russian Technologies, told the paper.
Kommersant said a discount on the debts may reach no less than 20%.
Sberbank, which owns 2.5 billion rubles, and Gazprombank said they planned to close the deal by the end of the year.
Russian Technologies also said that it would try to settle the problem with another lender, VTB, which holds 100% of Krasny Oktyabr shares as collateral and wants to own one of Russia's largest producers of high-quality steel for aviation, car, oil and gas, and energy sectors.
The holding company also plans to talk with other Kransny Oktyabr creditors, including electricity and raw materials suppliers, which own no less than 2.2 billion rubles.
MOSCOW, December 3 (RIA Novosti)
