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| Oleg Deripaska: the Rusal IPO in Hong Kong is expected to raise $2.6 billion |
Russian metals company Rusal hopes to launch its much-anticipated initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange later this month after initial plans to list by the end of 2009 turned to dust late in the day. The IPO, which is slated to raise as much as $2.6 billion, was seemingly on track for a pre-Christmas launch after Rusal signed off on a restructuring of its $17 billion of debt at the end of November. However, the listing committee of the HKSE threw a spanner in the works on December 7 when it said that Rusal had failed to fulfil a number of conditions, including the exchange’s profit requirement.
Rusal, which is controlled by Oleg Deripaska, made a loss of $868 million in the first half of 2009, although the company says its net profit for the year will be "unlikely to be less than" $434 million.
The IPO was finally given the green light on the basis of Rusal’s large prospective market capitalization, annual revenue of more than HK$500 million ($64 million) and positive operating cashflows.