By John Helmer, Moscow
The penultimate move in the two-month contest to stop the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK) takeover of Flinders Mines, scheduled for tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock local time, is already proving to be as bizarre as everything else recorded in the Chelyabinsk arbitrazh court to date.
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By John Helmer, Moscow
Oleg Deripaska (image centre) has told President Vladimir Putin that the only way to stop the rot at Rusal is to put an internationally respected foreigner at the head of the Rusal board of directors when the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) is held on June 15. Mikhail Prokhorov and Victor Vekselberg have told Putin the only way to stop the rot is to put a trusted Russian at the head of the board, and remove Deripaska from operational control of the company before he destroys it financially.
The foreigner Deripaska has told Putin he wants to appoint as chairman of the Rusal board is Matthias Warnig (image left), whose East German government career is not exactly respected outside Moscow. Because Warnig is also thought to be an early career ally of Putin’s, the Deripaska nomination has been interpreted as Putin’s decision. It isn’t, not yet.
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By John Helmer, Moscow
It’s a pity it had to wait until the Facebook folly for a lawsuit to be launched against Morgan Stanley on the double-barrelled charge — the investment bank and underwriter lies in its prospectuses and makes saps of share-buyers. According to the federal US court filing, “the [Facebook] registration statement and prospectus contained untrue statements of material facts.” In addition, Morgan Stanley is charged with selective disclosure of information, so that “preferred investors” get the better of everyone else in the market.
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By John Helmer, Moscow
Captain Matthew Flinders was a late 18th century British Navy captain and one of the greatest explorer navigators of his time. His circumnavigation around the southern continent he called Australia also led to the naming of dozens of places by his name, along with a species of local citrus tree. He spent so much time at sea, and so little at home, he wrote a book about his shipboard companion which he entitled Trim, Being the True Story of a Brave Seafaring Cat.
Understandably, Flinders Mines (FMS) thought their hole in the ground in Western Australia should be named after the captain, though after their six-month brush with the Russians, Trim might have been more apt. Here’s the tale so far.
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By John Helmer, Moscow
Magic is a type of confidence trickery, but not all confidence tricksters are magicians. The difference is whether, when the magician pulls, the hat has got a real rabbit in it.
Minerals under the ground have something in common with rabbits; that’s to say, sometimes they are there – sometimes there’s only the illusion they are. Junior mining companies have this much in common with magicians – if they point a wand and recite a spell, they expect you to believe they can deliver at the minehead what you can’t otherwise see underground. The other difference is that on the stock exchanges, mining company promoters can collect bigger fortunes than magicians with this sort of hocus pocus.
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By John Helmer, Moscow
Novolipetsk Metallurgical Combine (NLMK) and its owner Vladimir Lisin have won a suppression order against Nikolai Maximov, former owner of the Maxi group of minimills and scrap processors, from the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg. A three-judge panel has imposed a permanent injunction against publication in the press of claims by Maximov against Lisin, ruling that Maximov has made them up and despite dozens of court cases has failed to substantiate them.
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By John Helmer, Moscow
In the tarot pack, the card of the Hanged Man is not one everyone wants to be dealt. To some it portends doom. Others believe it symbolizes the great awakening to occur the moment after death when, if, there is a resurrection. As cards go, it’s a big bettor who wants this one.
This week Sergei Frank, the chief executive of the state tanker group Sovcomflot, decided to resurrect in the UK High Court allegations of fraud and corruption against Sovcomflot’s former ship-chartering partner Yury Nikitin. Some of these charges were tried by the court in 2009, and dismissed in rulings by Justice Andrew Smith of December 2009 and March 2010.
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By John Helmer, Moscow
Sergei Generalov, the controlling shareholder and president of Far Eastern Shipping Company (Fesco), has apparently decided to sell the company, once the leading dry-cargo shipping company in Russia. The buyer negotiating for the takeover is reported to be the Summa Capital holding of Ziyavudin Magomedov, a rival of Generalov’s in the ports and container segments of the Russian marine market.
Generalov holds about 56% of Fesco through his holding, Industrial Investors. Another 13% of the shares are held as treasury stock through an offshore entity called Neteller Holdings.The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and East Capital, a Swedish investment fund, have been minority stakeholders with 4% and 7%, respectively. Public shareholders of Fesco, whose primary listing is in Moscow, hold another 20%.
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By John Helmer, Moscow
White Tiger Gold (WTG) was supposed to be the curtain-raiser on the Canadian stock market for Mikhail Prokhorov and Maxim Finsky, his childhood playmate, to sell shares in their collection of little known gold and other mineral prospects and mining licences in Russia. That collection is called Intergeo, and it cost Prokhorov and Finsky play money.
At one time, Prokhorov’s former shareholding partner in Norilsk Nickel, Vladimir Potanin, accused him and Finsky of filling Intergeo with stolen goods—licences originally acquired for Norilsk Nickel and with the latter’s money. That case never went to court because Prokhorov and Potanin managed to settle between themselves which side each would get out of the bed they had shared together. Finsky got out too on Prokhorov’s side, and became boss of Intergeo.
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