In Brief

Published: July 25, 2008 (Issue # 1393)

Karusel Deal Examined

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia’s Anti-Monopoly Service may question X5 Retail Group NV’s purchase of superstore chain Karusel, RBC Daily reported, citing Timofei Nizhegorodtsev, head of the service’s trade department.

X5, Russia’s biggest food retailer, said Wednesday it would appeal requirements imposed by the regulator regarding the takeover because they have “no legal ground.” If X5 were to win, the service may argue in court that the acquisition was illegal because it might limit competition in the St. Petersburg region, where Karusel is based, Nizhegorodtsev told the newspaper.

Prokhorov to Invest

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov plans to invest $10 billion in Russian metal deposits acquired from former partner Vladimir Potanin, betting the global commodities rally will continue.

Prokhorov will invest the money in a dozen projects over the next five years as he seeks to become Russia’s second-biggest producer of nickel and titanium and a major miner of gold and copper, said Dmitry Razumov, CEO of Prokhorov’s Onexim Holdings.

Commodities including oil, gold, nickel and copper have reached all-time highs in the last 14 months on surging demand from emerging markets, stoking inflation around the globe.

SuperJet Gets Credit

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Eurasian Development Bank, a Russian-Kazakh joint venture, approved a 10-year, $100 million credit line for Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Co.’s SuperJet project.

The money will be used to build planes for test flights and to finance production and marketing of Russia’s first post-Soviet passenger jet, the Almaty-based bank said Thursday in an e-mailed statement.

Sukhoi Civil Aircraft has 98 “firm orders” for the SuperJet, the bank said.

Evraz Wins Over BasEl

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Evraz Group, Russia’s second-largest steelmaker by volume, won the right to develop a coal field in Siberia, beating billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s Basic Element among other contenders.

A unit of Evraz bid the most for the Mezhegeyskoye deposit, Alexei Ivanov, head of investor relations at Moscow-based Evraz, said by phone Thursday.

Evraz coal unit Yuzhkuzbassugol paid 16.9 billion rubles ($732 million) for the deposit, Interfax said, citing an unidentified representative of a company involved in the auction.

Comstar Set to Expand

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Comstar United Telesystems, a telecommunications company owned by Russian billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov, has received codes for long-distance calls that will allow it to expand the range of services.

Communications and Mass Media Minister Igor Shchegolev has signed off on the codes for Comstar, his spokeswoman Yelena Lashkina said by phone from Moscow on Thursday.

Comstar, which has more than 3.6 million fixed-line subscribers in households of the Russian capital through Moscow City Telephone and offers broadband Internet, plans to strengthen its corporate segment.