RUSAL to pay back $4.5 billion loan

UC RUSAL will pay back a $4.5 billion bridge loan from a consortium of Western Banks, using a new loan secured from Russia.

LONDON (Reuters)  - 

Russian aluminium producer United Company RUSAL will pay back a $4.5 billion bridge loan provided by a consortium of western banks on Friday using the $4.5 billion loan it secured from the Russian state earlier this week, a banking source close to the deal said.

The banker said the syndicate of banks that funded the original loan in April have been notified that the borrower, which is owned by Russia's richest man Oleg Deripaska, will pay back the facility in full on Friday.

"There's a lot of relief across the syndicate," he said.

State-owned Vnesheconombank (VEB), which has been entrusted with $50 billion by the Kremlin to help indebted Russian firms, agreed the bail-out loan for RUSAL on Wednesday, enabling Deripaska to keep his stake in Norilsk Nickel.

The loan was a welcome boost for Deripaska, who was forced to relinquish stakes in foreign companies as the global financial crisis slashed his net worth, and it signalled the Kremlin's intent to retain strategic assets in the hands of trusted businessmen.

RUSAL used the original $4.5 billion, two-year syndicated bridge loan to back its April acquisition of 25 percent plus two shares in Norilsk Nickel.

The borrower was facing the threat of handing over the stake in Norilsk to creditors unless it managed to refinance, a banking source told Reuters Loan Pricing Corp this month.

The source added that RUSAL had failed to agree a $1.9 billion club loan with its relationship banks because of market turmoil and had applied for a government loan from VEB.

(Reporting by Christopher Mangham; Editing by Quentin Bryar)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

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