By John Helmer, Moscow

The scandal surrounding Barry Cheung, the Hong Kong politician and former chairman of United Company Rusal, the state aluminium monopoly, has intensified the interest of shareholders and regulators in spending by Rusal’s chief executive, Oleg Deripaska. The company charter and the Hong Kong listing rules require supervision by the independent directors on the Rusal board’s governance, remuneration and audit committees. But Cheung, a member of the first two, has now resigned. Elsie Leung, a member of the audit committee, is facing a no-confidence motion at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on June 14.

Newly available evidence suggests that Rusal has made an agreement with a London-registered trader whose business seems to have nothing to do with bauxite, alumina or aluminium; whose accounts fail to reveal millions of dollars it has been receiving from Rusal; and whose UK Companies House registration will be wound up next week if it doesn’t file missing financial reports. According to Rusal insiders and sources familiar with the matter, the transfers were for individual services of multi-million dollar importance.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, June 6th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

What can have motivated Vladimir Yevtushenkov (image right) of the Sistema conglomerate of Moscow to hire for his board of directors last week a man who is a magnet for negative British press coverage, and who was judged last year by the UK High Court for an action brought, and lost, by his friend, Nathaniel Rothschild?

The announcement of Lord Peter Mandelson’s (top left) appointment to the Sistema board, replacing Yevgeny Novitsky, was issued last Thursday. The announcement doesn’t explain what was wrong or obsolete with Novitsky’s talents or connexions, about which the Russian press have printed many allegations. Mandelson, on the other hand, is the owner of a small public relations company tied to WPP, an international conglomerate of PR firms controlled by Philip Lader, who sits on Oleg Deripaska’s Rusal board. Lader’s relationship with Mandelson has been described in a WPP press release as “provid[ing] seed capital along with additional benefits in kind including office accommodation”.
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by John Helmer - Monday, June 3rd, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Gazprom, the Russian gas producer and exporter, is thinking of reviving an old idea to refine natural gas on the Baltic shore and ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) westward to European markets in competition against Qatar and Nigeria. At least that’s what Ziyavudin Magomedov (image right), chairman of the Summa Group, wants everyone to think. Maybe Alexei Miller, Gazprom’s chief executive, too. Since neither Gazprom nor Magomedov’s spokesman at Summa Group, is willing to put a confirmation where the press leak was, noone is keen to believe either of them.

Alexei Miller, Gazprom’s chief executive, was speaking last week at a conference in the Siberian city of Tomsk where in an aside, he said the company might soon announce a new LNG project. “The key concept of Gazprom’s strategy is diversification,” Miller said in his prepared remarks. “Firstly, it is the diversification of our target markets. The Company’s operating principles are very simple: firstly, gas should be sold, then produced, conveyed and sold to consumers. Secondly, it is the diversification of our production regions, transport and finished products to be sold.”
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by John Helmer - Thursday, May 30th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The share price of United Company Rusal, the state-controlled Russian aluminium monopoly, lost 3% in value in Hong Kong Stock Exchange trading on Monday on news that Barry Cheung, a prominent Hong Kong businessman, had resigned from the Rusal board as his own business collapsed, and that he was the target of a Hong Kong police investigation for fraud.

When Rusal wanted to promote Cheung’s importance in Hong Kong, it trumpeted the news among the press releases on the company website. Thus, in March of 2012, Rusal announced that the company “congratulates its Chairman Mr Barry Cheung for a successful campaign which helped Mr Leung Chun-ying (“CY Leung”) win the office of Hong Kong’s fourth Chief Executive in yesterday’s election. Mr Leung’s five-year term will begin on July 1, 2012. Mr Leung’s winning was the culmination of a long and active campaign supported by a highly professional campaign office headed by Mr Cheung.” A few weeks later, following voting at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of shareholders, another Rusal press release announced that Cheung had been re-elected to a second term, and that he had convened a meeting of the new board.
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by John Helmer - Monday, May 27th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

According to Russian-language records and a Tashkent party film published by Stockholm television last week, Alisher Usmanov held the hand of Gulnara Karimova and whispered intimately to her just days after the latter had been making plans to collect millions of dollars in payments from Swedish telephone company, TeliaSonera. Karimova is one of two daughters of the President of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov; she is a leading candidate to replace him if he falls ill, or to succeed him at the presidential election due in March 2015. Karimova is also one of several targets of official investigations underway in Sweden and Switzerland, alleged to have been behind a corrupt payment system through which TeliaSonera obtained and operated its mobile telephone concession in Uzbekistan, and through which the Russian rival, Mobile Telesystems (MTS), owned by Vladimir Yevtushenkov, lost its concession and was forced out of Uzbekistan last year. The tale of that billion-dollar expropriation can be read here.

Usmanov, who is Uzbek by origin, is TeliaSonera’s shareholding partner in Megafon, the London-listed mobile telephone operator and rival of Yevtushenkov in the Russian telecommunication market. Usmanov is also on the top of Rich Lists in Russia and the UK, based on estimates of his asset value in Russian telephony, iron-ore mines, steelmills, print and internet media, not counting his debts and obligations. He has been one of the more nervous of the oligarchs, ready to put up his hand to volunteer, and quick to implement the Kremlin’s marching orders.
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by John Helmer - Monday, May 27th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Tethered high above Victor Pinchuk’s newest steel smelter at the Interpipe plant, visible for miles around the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk, is a large balloon. It’s meant to symbolize what the Interpipe website is calling the smelter’s state-of-the-art technology — “the construction plant has no harmful effect on the atmosphere or social surroundings”; also its historical uniqueness in the steel industry west of the Russian border – “a vital step in the development of the domestic Ukrainian pipe industry.” For the curious and for asthmatics, Interpipe is offering guided tours of the plant to demonstrate how it “marks the beginning of a green era in the metallurgical industry.” The plant’s press office says the balloon construction is called Sun Interpipe. “It’s an art object, and we are not going to remove it.”

Less intentionally, the balloon symbolizes the sky-high cost of building the smelter and supplying it with electricity; Pinchuk’s growing billion-dollar debts; and the collapse of demand for the steel products Pinchuk is offering for sale in Ukraine and Russia, Interpipe’s make-or-break markets.

Although Interpipe remains privately held by Pinchuk, documents the company has prepared with his bankers to cover his debts, together with bank sources, reveal how strapped for cash Pinchuk is. The balloon is also going up for Pinchuk, as he tries to raise at least $143 million, perhaps ten times as much, from a claim filed in the UK High Court against two rival Ukrainian metals magnates, based on recollections of meetings Pinchuk and the others held in the Ukraine, Israel, Sardinia, and Switzerland, starting nine years ago.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, May 23rd, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

There has been no movement in Evraz’s proposed sale of its South African unit, Highveld Steel & Vanadium, to Nemascore, a special purpose vehicle created in February by a black empowerment enterprise linked to South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma (right). The deal for $320 million was announced by Evraz in March. At the time, the transaction was reportedly to be financed by Russian state bank VTB at a price which was more than double the market value of Evraz’s 85% stake in the company.

Subsequently, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), the SA Government’s business stakeholder, said it was not involved in providing VTB with repayment guarantees to facilitate financing for Nemascore’s purchase. Neamscore’s directors have refused to discuss the deal, say where the money is coming from, or explain it in light of Highveld’s lossmaking and other troubles last year.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Roman Abramovich (left) landed in Hong Kong on Tuesday afternoon. Abramovich is an influential shareholder in Norilsk Nickel, Russia’s largest mining and metals company, on whose dividends the loss-making United Company Rusal now depends to stay out of the red. Rusal is the Russian aluminium monopoly, but Hong Kong is home to Rusal’s share listing, and its dwindling share price. According to the latest Rusal financial report, the company ran a $47 million loss in the quarter to March 31. Adding $99 million of its share of Norilsk Nickel’s profit put Rusal’s red line into the black by $52 million. But for the annual general meeting (AGM) of Rusal shareholders to consider such matters, Abramovich is 24 days early. The Rusal AGM is scheduled at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Hong Kong, at 10 in the morning of June 14.

At this meeting, a director on the Rusal board, Elsie Leung Oi-Sie (right), is facing a vote of no-confidence. A parallel motion proposes her replacement by a Russian candidate, Dmitry Vasiliev. The moves have been initiated by the 15.8% shareholder bloc of Victor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik for reasons reported here. They may be supported by Mikhail Prokhorov with his 17.02% of the Rusal shares; his spokesman said today it’s too early to announce how he will vote. If counted together, the vote against Leung may start with almost 33% of the shareholder votes. Another 10.03% of Rusal’s shares are classified as a public float, according to the company website. The largest part of that, 3.15%, was acquired at the initial public offering (IPO) by the state bailout bank, Vnesheconombank (VEB).
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

If you are looking for Gennady Timchenko (second from right), the dominant Russian in the partnership which created the oil trader Gunvor, you won’t find him in the market prospectus Gunvor has just released to the market. That’s because the document, dated May 10, 2013, spells his name Guennadi Timtchenko.

The prospectus for $500 million in bonds is the first to be issued to the market by the hitherto secretive Timchenko and his partner, Torbjorn Tornqvist. Prepared by Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, ING and Societe Generale, the document says Timchenko and Tornqvist own the group 50/50. But the prospectus isn’t a prospectus in Switzerland because in that country, Gunvor can “not claim to comply with the disclosure standards of the Swiss Federal Code of Obligations and the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange Ltd. and corresponding prospectus schemes annexed to the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange Ltd.” The prospectus can be read in full here.
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by John Helmer - Monday, May 20th, 2013
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Hong Kong
May 17, 2013: 0850

Dear Mr. Helmer:

I have no wish to comment on whatever article you wished to write, but since you have put it to me and I have to disagree with you in many of the statements made, in particular:
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by John Helmer - Thursday, May 16th, 2013
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