Billionaire Oleg Deripaska plans to pay, not use asset swaps, to regain 25 percent of Strabag through an option this year, after ceding the stake in the Austrian builder over debt in 2009, his spokesman said Tuesday.
“We plan to exercise the option in accordance with previously reached agreements with our partners,” said Sergei Babichenko, a spokesman for Deripaska’s Basic Element holding. “We’re talking about money.”
Babichenko said reports in Austrian and Russian media that Deripaska may swap stakes in Russian construction assets to exercise the option for Strabag shares are “incorrect.”
(Bloomberg)
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