Russian gold producer Polyus does not expect any other strategic investor to buy a stake in the company after cancellation of a 10% stake sale to China’s Fosun, CEO Pavel Grachyov said on February 15 in a conference call.
Polyus was not part of the deal.
“Nevertheless, we don’t see any initiatives to look for a replacement among strategic investors, and we see no such investors in our field of view,” he said.
Still, the company is interested in raising its free-float.
“We have always been saying that we are aimed at expansion of free float. It is obviously done through the sales of shares. We won’t disclose the terms, the amount, and the sources,” he said.
In January Polyus said it had cancelled an agreement to sell the stake and an option for 5% more shares to Fosun. A representative of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said that the fund would remain a shareholder of Polyus. (Prime/Ukrainian metal)