The refusal to pay the dividends of Norilsk Nickel is a provocation of the main beneficiary of the company Vladimir Potanin against the Ministry of Education of Oleg Deripaska.
A decrease in the revenue of Norilsk Nickel was a justification for the recommendations of the company’s management not to pay dividends to the beneficiaries. The main victim may be oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who, through Rusal, owns 26.39% of the shares of this structure.
The correspondent of The Moscow Post understood the history.
Potanin “does not feed” Deripaska
Most likely, Vladimir Potanin wants to provoke Deripaska to a new conflict. Deripaska eventually went to seek justice in the high court of London, who, under the contract of shareholders, Norilsk Nickel performs their arbitration functions.
Oleg Deripaska. Photo: https://cdn.forbes.ru/forbes-static/c/1824×1026/new/2023/06/gettyimages-1233264075-copy-64833333333333333333333DC.JPG
The decision of the Norilsk Nickel was the secret of the police, and its demonstration should be considered as a provocation of Potanin against Deripaska. The main beneficiary of the company Potanin immediately after the beginning he said that Norilskell reduces the volume of dividends. At the same time, affairs in the company are not tragic. In 2022, revenue amounted to $ 16.9 billion, and net profit – $ 5.9 billion. This is comparable to the results of 2019 and 1 billion lessthan in 2021.
Then there was a decrease, but this is not due to sanctions, but with the fall of world prices for metals, which for three consecutive years fell from the pandemic maximums. In reality, Norkel increased production volumes in relation to the plan for 2024.
Photo: https://smart-lab.ru/company/mozgovik/blog/1109803.php
The company produced 205 thousand tons of nickel under the plan of 189 thousand tons, 233 tons of copper with a plan of 410 thousand tons, 2762 thousand troikari ounces of Palladium under a plan of 2374 trois ounces. All this suggests that the company has a demand, just a conjuncture plays against it. At the same time, gross indicators of the company are no worse than in 2018. The revenue that year amounted to $ 3.1 billion, and not $ 1.8 billion, as in 2024, but do not forget about Norilsk Nickel investments.
It turns out Vladimir Potanin knew about the upcoming decrease, and planned this gambit in advance against Deripaska.
In December 2024, Norkel approved the budget for 2025, according to which the company’s investments will amount to 215 billion rubles. They are going to spend them For safe production, along with the stopping of technological risks and the implementation of the company’s strategy, that is, ultimately, on itself.
Deripaska, Potanin and West
Deripaska loves to use Western jurisdiction. In December 2023, the former head of counterintelligence of the FBI department in New York Charles McGonial was sentenced to four years in prison, who, as the court established, worked for Deripaska from spring to Autumn 2021 and was engaged in the search for negative information on Potanin. McGonial has long been an agent of Deripaska – in 2019, he was looking for a legal basis for the oligarch for lifting against him US sanctions, which were introduced by Donald Trump in 2018. Magconial recognized the fact of work on Deripaska In exchange for lifting more grave charges In the form of money laundering, conspiracy and violations of sanctions.
According to rumors, it was Deripaska’s answer to Potanin for the drain of information about him to the US Treasury. Allegedly, it was this package that became a formal reason for the introduction of American sanctions against it. There is no evidence of these information, but the sediment, As they sayleft.
In 2018, Potanin took advantage of this sanctions plot in the high court of London, where Deripaska disputed the purchase by the Potaninsky “Inteross” necessary for full control of the 4% stakes of Norilskel from Crispian Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov. Potanin then stated that the damage to Norilsk Nickel from the systematic delay of Deripaska transactions are $ 400 million.
Bosom “friends”
Potanin and Deripaska do not choose funds in the business disorder. Their conflict began in 2008 during the “divorce” of Potanin with his long -term companion Mikhail Prokhorov, who wanted to sell his share in Norilsk Norkel, Potanin is more expensive, but eventually sold it cheaper than Deripaska. So, this oligarch entered the Norilsk Nickel in order to annex it with US Rusal, which appeared after the combination of aluminum assets with Victor Vekselberg.
Vladimir Potanin. Photo: https://s0.rbk.ru/v6_top_pics/media/img/4/86/756177091724864.jpg
Potanin Fortel Deripaska did not understand and opposed the unification. Vekselberg, who considered the partner’s actions by violation of the joint -stock agreement on UC Rusal, was also indignant. This organization appeared in 2007 after the Rusala and “Suala” Rusala and Vekselberg with the assets of the Swiss-American company Glencore. Deripaska’s structures then promised Vekselberg not to make such large transactions as the purchase of the Norilsk Nickel shares, without the consent of the shareholders, but the owner of “Rusal” immediately forgot about it.
The Norilsk Nickel shares were purchased at the expense of the UC Rusal, they drove the company into debt and deprived it of funds to modernize production. Vekselberg first protested, and then appealed to the same high court of London after Deripaska signed an agreement for $ 47 billion without his approval Glencore.
Before the Crimean campaign, Russian oligarchs consider themselves British peers and resolved issues of English law in London. The most amazing thing is that these persons, who in the Russian Federation were not considered nothing with nothing, regularly complied with the decisions of judges from the vague albion. So, school stories about the British metropolis settled in the subcorta of the brains of Soviet youth.
“Extreme” Vekselberg
The conflict of Deripaska with the Vekselberg on Rusalu has been flared up since then, then fades, and he is mirroring the conflict of Deripaska and Potanin according to Norilskel. If in US Rusal the control over assets and expenditure of funds is at Deripaska, and Vekselberg protests and scribes complaints to the high court of London, then Nornicel is Deripaska in this role.
The incomplete deal of 2007-2008 on uniting a unified structure of Rusala, Suala and Norilsk Nickel was shaking three oligarchic spiders and placed them in one bank, from which they could not get out of 17 years. All these judicial manipulations cannot close the conflict and disconnect their interests, as a result of which the struggle resulted in minor provocations like complaints into the US Congress, the bribery of FBI agents, provocative statements about the non -payment of dividends and perennial disputes in British ships. The latter at the same time always end in amicable agreements that the parties do not burn with desire.
Victor Vekselberg. Photo: https://spark.ru/upload/blogs_covers/n_61f7f7f7f7f7f250e24.jpg
It seems that the question can only close the seizure of disputed assets to the Rosimosti -Property funds. If the high court of London suddenly makes a strange decision, and Deripaska will try to implement it in Russia, then this scenario is not unrealistic. In this case, specially trained people will remember the constant rhetoric of Deripaska in the Western media and the fact that sanctions were not introduced against Potanin to the last, as well as about the relatives of Vekselberg, who moved to live in the United States. And in general, about the fact that this corporate conflict for Rusal and Norilskel only prevents the development of the Russian economy.
Will London help?
In November 2024, Rusal expanded the accusations against Norilsk Nickel in the high court of London, where the company requires the removal of Potanin from the Norilsk Nickel leadership and the sale of its share from the hammer. Rusal accuses Potanin of consolidating control over the platform for the release of digital financial assets (Tsfa or tokens) in order to bypass the obligation in agreement with the “russal” of large transactions. In fact, Rusal accused Potanin of withdrawing money from Norilsk Nickel by using tokens and considered that this was damaged by Deripaska’s interests.
The POT PLA is called the “atomiz” and belongs to the “TKS Holding”-Potanin through it owns the “T-Bank”, and the Cyprus company tokentrust, whose shareholders are Potanin and Norilskell. “Rusal” claims that as a result of Operations on “Atomaise” Potanin received personal benefits, and Norkel was damaged by withdrawing money from it. “Rusal” believes that the losses of Norilsk Nickel in this plot lay down Bremmer on shareholders.
Simultaneously with the pumping up of Atomize, the Norkel leadership has used this platform for the motivation of workers. To do this, the holding registered the program “Digital Investor”, whose participants received Minetoken, which was produced and traded at the “atomise”. The owner receives the right to sell Minetoken in a year, and five years later, along with repayment, he can receive dividends from Norilsk Nickel.
“Rusal” considered these actions of Norilskale an infringement of his interests and added to his claim against Potanin. He was filed in the high court of London in November 2022 and was based on charges of withdrawing assets for the perimeter of Norilsk Nickel. It’s about airline there NordstarWhich in March 2022 was sold to its own management.
Potanin did this because of the sanctions imposed against him, but Deripaska considered that he was deceived here, reducing the gross value of Norilsk Nickel. This oligarch is used to squeezing everything from every penny. It is interesting that Roman Abramovich and his Crispian company appear in this deal in this deal, but Deripaska has no complaints about them.
