Nickel and copper mined there are needed for his GAZ plant in Nizhny Novgorod. It would also be a winning point in his longstanding conflict with Vladimir Potanin.
Shouldn’t you send us Volynets?
Russian businessman Artem Volynets, acting on behalf of a London-based firm, bought nickel and copper mines in Brazil for a billion dollars. The mined ore, as the project participants say, should eventually go to automakers in Europe. However, in fact, the possible beneficiary of this deal is Oleg Deripaska, who also produces cars, with whom Volynets has a long relationship.
Details are in the material of The Moscow Post correspondent in the Nizhny Novgorod region.
From Hong Kong to London
Artem Volynets – was considered one of the most effective managers of Oleg Deripaska’s companies, for whom he worked from 2007 to 2013. Until 2010, he led the strategy and corporate development of RUSAL Global Management. From 2010 to 2013, he was chairman of the board of directors of RUSAL’s parent company En+, which combines Deripaska’s assets in metallurgy and energy.
Volynets also oversaw the merger of two Russian aluminum producers with Glencore’s alumina assets in the 2000s. In addition, it was Volynets who helped organize the $2.2 billion initial public offering of RUSAL’s shares in Hong Kong in 2010.
Now Volynets is the executive director of the London-based company ACG Acquisition. Following the deal, he announced that the company would be renamed ACG Electric Metals.
Alumina Glencore has also surfaced now – it also supports the deal. Glencore, Stellantis and La Mancha will own 51% of the company’s share capital, while 49% will be reserved for free float, Volynets himself said. Also supporting the deal is a subsidiary of Volkswagen, which specializes in the production of batteries for electric vehicles.
At the same time, even according to open information, this deal is strange, because. it passes with the help of SPAC. SPACs are those that raise money through an initial public offering and then merge with a private company, making it public.
ACG plans to raise another $300 million in capital from other investors to support the deal, sources inside the company said. In addition, ACG will consider further similar acquisitions in the future.
Conflict with Norilsk Nickel
Who are these mysterious investors? Despite the fact that Volynets seemed to no longer be Deripaska’s business partner, in fact they maintained a relationship. It is quite possible that it was Deripaska who wanted to buy the mines. This would explain how Volynets found investors who were ready to pay off a generous sum. Moreover, now this is more than relevant: the conflict between Deripaska and Vladimir Potanin, which began 15 years ago, has escalated. The companies they own are the main shareholders of Norilsk Nickel.
Disputes between Potanin’s Interros and Deripaska’s UC Rusal over the company’s development strategy began immediately after UC Rusal, which at that time was controlled by Oleg Deripaska (lost control at the end of 2018 after the introduction of US sanctions), bought out a blocking stake in the company in the spring of 2008 from Mikhail Prokhorov. UC Rusal accused the management of Norilsk Nickel of fraud and filed lawsuits against Interros in the London International Arbitration Court on violation of agreements
Deripaska’s company, in particular, sought the re-election of the board of directors, the resignation of the general director of the metallurgical company (at that time it was Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, nominated by Potanin) and an increase in dividends. Interros and Norilsk Nickel’s management, in turn, several times offered UC Rusal, weighed down by a large debt, to sell a stake in the company, but she did not agree.
The conflict over the assets of Norilsk Nickel between Oleg Deripaska and Vladimir Potanin is still going on, and it makes no sense to retell the details again.
Something else is interesting here. During the corporate conflict in 2018, Oleg Deripaska offered Artem Volynets as an independent director at Norilsk Nickel. Recall that by that time Volynets was no longer working for Deripaska. This means that business ties between them could still be strong, to say the least.
At that time, the side of Potanin Volynets, as they say, “rolled”.
Interesting and something else. After leaving Deripaska, Volynets worked for a short time in a gold mining company, then he was involved in saving Petropavlovsk, and already in 2018 he headed Martin Anderson’s Chaarat Gold, which he owns jointly with China Nonferrous Metals Int’l Mining.
It is curious that back in April it became known that Chaarat Gold abandoned the idea of acquiring the Amulsar deposit in Armenia. A month later, there was a message that Xiwang could acquire 60% of Chaarat gold miner for $250 million.
Many associate Xiwang with some Chinese investors.
Are there not many events going on around the former top manager Oleg Deripaska?
And recently there was another news. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin attended a business forum in Shanghai on 23 May. As Bloomberg reported, Oleg Deripaska was supposed to be with him.
This was five days after it became known that Xiwang could acquire 60% of gold miner Chaarat.
Curiously, as the FT reported today, “ACG Ltd (ACG:LSE) set a new 52-week high during today’s trading session when it hit 10.80. The share price is up 5.74% over that period.”
Behind all these manipulations, the possible interests of Oleg Deripaska are traced. Too familiar underlining.
And we have GAZ in our assets, and you?
Quite often, UC Rusal emphasizes that it is the largest Russian aluminum company, which simply “cannot live” without state support. Meanwhile, Oleg Deripaska’s UC Rusal holding is registered on the island of Jersey, and its traders are in Switzerland, which allows RUSAL not to pay the entire tax burden to the Russian budget.
But still: why could Deripaska need the metals necessary for the production of cars? The fact is that in addition to all the metallurgical companies, he also owns the GAZ plant in Nizhny Novgorod.
Deripaska acquired it back in 2000. For about a year now, GAZ has been operating under sanctions, due to which, in March 2022, the Volkswagen concern terminated the agreement on contract assembly of cars with it, which was valid until 2025. In response, the Russian company demanded through the court to recover 15.6 billion rubles from the former partner – this is how GAZ estimated its losses.
And here it is surprising: Volkswagen pops up again in a deal with Brazilian mines as one of the key investors. Is this also part of the multi-move?
After the acquisition, Deripaska modernized the plant more than once – he mainly dabbled in inviting Japanese specialists there. Perhaps this time he wants to produce more modern cars than the hulking Gazelles?