Polymetal “trouble”, or who will get all the gold of Nesis

There is a high probability that the Russian assets of the Polymetal group will go to the structures of Vladislav Sviblov, and the deal will be financed by VTB.

The main contenders for Russian assets have become known, the Polymetal group, which is part of the ICT holding of oligarch Alexander Nesis. Among those interested are Polyus of Said Kerimov, UMMC of Iskander Makhmudov, Seligdar – a joint venture of Dmitry Doev and Rostec, ALROSA and the owner of Highland Gold Vladislav Sviblov.

With a high degree of probability, the assets will go to Vladislav Sviblov. In recent years, he has staged an unprecedented expansion in the gold mining market, while initially building a business on credit support from VTB.

The State Bank is also actively lending to Polimimetal’s structures, and is already exchanging credit money for shares in the group’s enterprises. Will Nesis and Sviblov be united by Andrey Kostin’s “favor”?

In May of this year, JSC Polymetal fell under blocking US sanctions, after which the company decided to re-register from Jersey to Kazakhstan. In the summer, this process was completed, but this was not enough: in order to remove all the sanctions risks, Alexander Nesis and Co. decided to withdraw from Russian assets.

And they are considerable – these are projects on the territory of the Magadan Region, the Khabarovsk Territory, the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Yakutia, and other places. This is huge money.

Who owes Nesis

But selling an asset is difficult. First, you need permission from regulators in the Russian Federation and the United States. More than 10% of Polymetal is owned by the American investment fund Black Rock. The one who does his best to help unfriendly Ukraine, counting on contracts for the restoration of the country after the conflict. It turns out that in recent years he has been quietly receiving money from the development of Russian mineral resources.

The second factor is the large debts of Polymetal. And it seems that this is where the dog is buried: to whom will the “gold” of Nesis go? The total debt of Polymetal’s assets is $2.59 billion. Of these, $2.39 billion are debts of the holding’s Russian structures to various counterparties, both ours and foreign ones.

Photo: https://smart-lab.ru/q/POLY/MSFO/debt/

In ruble terms, it can be seen that in all recent years, starting from 2019, the company has only increased its loan obligations. The exact structure of debts in the company is not disclosed – this is a trade secret. But information about open credit lines is freely available.

One of the largest creditors of Polymetal in the Russian Federation was Sberbank, led by German Gref. In the same 2019, he opened a credit line for Nesisov holding for $500 million with a maturity of 10 years. He, Sberbank, is lending to UMMC in the most active way – in 2021, the plant was provided with at least 25 billion rubles for the development of the Novo-Uchalinsky copper pyrite deposit.

That is, at least one-fifth of Polymetal’s total debt (including foreign assets) to the Russian state bank. It could be assumed that it is UMMC that will eventually receive the assets of Nesis.

In addition, the business partners of the Nesisov are the family of entrepreneur Alexander Mamut, who at first very successfully lent his business at Sberbank, and then sold these unprofitable offices to him.

Polymetal’s financial results have declined, but it is still an extremely profitable business. Photo: JSC “Polymetal”

However, Polymetal has another major creditor – the state bank VTB, which is headed by Andrey Kostin. And he works with Polymetal no less tightly. The very rise of this Nesis business turned out to be associated with the opening of a large credit line from VTB for 6 billion rubles, opened in 2011. ($20 million at the rate of 2011). There is no information that Nesis fully repaid this debt.

In 2020, VTB, led by Kostin, invested $71 million in Veduga, the Polymetal gold deposit in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. But not just like that, but in exchange for a 40.6% stake in the asset – through the purchase of 25.7% of the Amikan company (owns the license for Veduta).

Those. VTB and Kostin are clearly showing interest in the group’s assets. However, there is a more revealing story.

On the hook at Kostin

In March 2023, Otkritie Holding (OH), which is going through bankruptcy proceedings, began to challenge the transactions of its former shareholders. The GO immediately filed two lawsuits against the companies of its ICT group, where the ex-beneficiary of the GO, Vadim Belyaev, who fled the country, is also listed as a co-respondent with Nesis. They are required to compensate 13.8 billion rubles of losses.

The ICT group, in which Nesis had 50% at the time of the disputed transactions, owned about 10% of Otkritie Holding. Another 26% was owned by Vadim Belyaev, a longtime business partner of Nesis.

These are transactions in 2017. In the first case, Otkritie bought a stake in the United Wagon Corporation (UWC) for 6.5 billion rubles, which, according to experts, was twice the market price. The second deal happened already during the sanction – as a result of it, Otkritie agreed to transfer the debts of the ICT group to a company associated with Belyaev. No one returned the debt, the amount of damage amounted to 7.3 billion rubles.

As you know, in December 2022, Otkritie Bank from the OH was 100% owned by VTB. With all debts, courts and obligations to him of counterparties. It turns out that the current legal proceedings on the scandal between Nesis and the OK are in the hands of Kostin?
Given that in 2020, due to the situation with UWC transactions, the ICT Nesis group had its assets frozen for 8 billion rubles, it is Mr. Kostin who can help decide his fate.

We also add that, according to data from open sources, from 2015 to 2021, Polymetal received at least four large loans. And two of them – the so-called. climate credits to ensure the environmental safety of production. The last of them, from 2021, is a loan from Russia’s “friendly” Raiffeisenbank for $200 million.

Photo: https://cbonds.ru/loans/3805/

Another “green” loan for $75 million the company received from the now infamous Societe Generale bank, which lost more than 3 billion euros after leaving the Russian Federation after the start of the NWO. At the same time, searches were recently carried out in this French bank in the case of tax fraud.

Sviblov in interest

And what does Vladislav Sviblov have to do with it? The fact is that initially his mining business was closely connected with VTB and the favor of Kostin. It was VTB that partially financed Sviblov’s deal to purchase a 40% stake in Highland Gold, which cost Sviblov more than $570 million.

Prior to this, the state bank issued loans to Sviblov’s structures for 70 billion rubles. This money was used to purchase the Ozernoye polymetallic deposit in Buryatia. As a pledge, the bank received a company that will work at this field. That is, if the business works out, Mr. Sviblov will remain in chocolate, but if not, the bank will take over the unprofitable structure.

And why would Andrei Kostin embark on such an adventure, unless he himself or his people have a personal commercial interest in this?

The purchase of Polymetal’s assets fits perfectly into Sviblov’s actions in recent years. In the summer of 2022, he received Russian mines and production lines that belonged to the Canadian company Kinross. For them, he will pay $ 340 million until 2027. This is despite the fact that earlier the gold business of Canadians in Russia was estimated at $1.5-2 billion.

In parallel, the structures of Vladislav Sviblov bought out a nickel-copper deposit in the Amur Region from the British Amur Minerals. Back in May, the negotiations included an amount of $105 million, after which it was only about $35 million.

In this case, too, Sviblov can count on the Nesis brothers leaving Russia, under the weight of sanctions and debt obligations, to sell him assets at a huge discount. And the same VTB, which works closely with the oligarch, will be able to finance the deal.

Vladislav Sviblov and Andrey Kostin set their sights on the assets of Nesis? Photo: https://ulanude.bezformata.com/listnews/buryatii-stroitelstvo-ozernogo-gok/77472203/?amp=1

In addition, quite recently Sviblov owned a 5% stake in the major gold miner Petropavlovsk for some time. This happened just at the height of the corporate conflict, during which the structures of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC) forced Pavel Maslovsky, co-founder of Petropavlovsk, out of business. Sviblov’s representatives “sank” Maslovsky with their vote, and then Sviblov sold his stake with a threefold profit.

If we bring it all together, we can assume that it is Vladislav Sviblov who will ultimately receive the assets of the Nesis in the Russian Federation. But will he be the sole owner, or will the interests of Andrey Kostin’s team be taken into account in the deal? There are grounds for such suspicions.