THE WORLD’S largest aluminium company lost its chairman yesterday in a dispute between two of its wealthy Russian owners over whether the firm should focus solely on the lightweight metal or also keep a foothold in other mining ventures.
Viktor Vekselberg resigned by sending an open letter to the board criticising the company’s management, which is controlled by another Russian industrialist, Oleg Deripaska.
“Due to the actions of its management, Rusal is now facing a deep crisis,” the letter stated. “Rusal . . . transformed from an international leader of the aluminium industry into a company overburdened with debt and entangled in numerous lawsuits and social conflicts.”
The letter did not provide details. However, Mr Vekselberg and Mr Deripaska have clashed over whether Rusal should sell its minority stake in another Russian metals behemoth, the Arctic mining company Norilsk Nickel.
Shares in Rusal, which is a competitor for the US aluminium company Alcoa and an important supplier to Chinese manufacturers, fell 1.3 per cent before trading was suspended on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Rusal, formed over the past decade by reuniting the detritus of the Soviet aluminium industry, now produces about 10 per cent of the global supply of the metal used in cars, aircraft, construction and as kitchen foil.
But Mr Deripaska, still the largest shareowner, eyed an even larger role for Rusal: he envisioned the firm monopolising non-ferrous metals output from Russia.
In a poorly timed deal in 2008 – at the peak of the market in Russia before the global recession – he took on debt to acquire a quarter of the shares of Norilsk from Mikhail Prokhorov, the oligarch who is now largely out of day-to-day Russian business and who ran for president this winter.
Since that transaction, creditors and some shareholders in Rusal, including Mr Vekselberg, have pushed the firm to sell this stake but Mr Deripaska has refused.
Rusal said that Mr Vekselberg, whose other assets include shares in a joint venture with BP, had been shirking his duties on the board and would have been voted off had he not resigned. – ( New York Timesservice)
