Russia's largest nickel maker Norilsk Nickel has sold 8.06 percent of its shares to two offshore companies, Delmonico Group and Crelios Investment, for over $2.77 billion, the company said in documents obtained by RIA Novosti on Monday.
The owners of the two companies were not specified in the documents.
In December 2010, Norilsk signed a deal with Swiss-based trading house Trafigura Beheer BV on the sale to it of American Depositary Shares (ADS) equaling about 8 percent of Norilsk's stock. This year the nickel giant said it closed the deal but did not publish its terms.
Russian aluminum giant RusAl, one of the core shareholders in Norilsk Nickel, has said the deal was not approved by the Norilsk board of directors, its details were opaque and Trafigura may not be the end buyer of the shares, while a company friendly to Norilsk may have financed the purchase.
The lack of transparency of the Trafigura deal gave ground to auditors not to sign Norilsk Nickel's 2010 financial results to International Financial Reporting Standards, which were published unaudited only this July.
RusAl, controlled by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, and Interros, the investment arm of another Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin, have been locked in a struggle for control of Norilsk Nickel. RusAl claims the Norilsk board became dominated by officials linked with Interros after an AGM last summer, where RusAl lost one board seat, while Interros increased its representation.
At an extraordinary shareholders' meeting this March, Interros gained four seats on Norilsk board, while RusAl and Norilsk management, regarded as being close to Interros, got two seats each. Interros' nominee also chaired the board after the AGM this year.
