Russian Railways will help Igor Zyuzin, the principal shareholder of steel and coal group Mechel, finance the purchase of the Vanino Port, Kommersant reported on Thursday, citing a source at Russian Railways.
In total, the deal cost Mechel companies more than 20 billion rubles ($667 million). The source said that the railway company could provide about 25 percent of this amount, or more than 5 billion rubles, the paper said.
Kommersant quoted him as saying that "preliminary agreements were reached even before the privatization" of the port, and the structure of Russian Railways' participation in financing the deal has been in the works for several months.
However, the paper cited the source as saying that "the idea of Russian Railways or its subsidiaries investing in the share capital of the port was discussed only at the early stages," but now "it has been decided that the monopoly will not be a shareholder of the port under any circumstances."
(MT)
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