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Nornickel's biggest financier Interros objects to Rusal lawsuit over dividends

Nornickel's biggest shareholder Interros said on Thursday it had actually filed an objection to a London claim brought by fellow shareholder Rusal, alleging that Rusal is trying to maximise dividends even if doing so is not in Nornickel's best interests.

The long-running disagreement in between Nornickel Chief Executive Vladimir Potanin, who holds a 37% stake through Interros, and aluminium giant Rusal, which owns 26.4%, magnified at the end of 2022 when a decade-old investor pact securing Nornickel's dividend payments expired.

Nornickel is the world's largest manufacturer of palladium, which carmakers use in engine exhausts to reduce emissions, and a significant miner of refined nickel, utilized for metallurgy and electric car batteries.

Rusal initially submitted the lawsuit in 2022, alleging that Potanin had broken their investor contract. It later on added more claims, including declaring that Nornickel's employee reward scheme benefited Potanin at the expense of other shareholders.

Interros repeated that it concerned these claims as unfounded and said in a statement on Thursday that Rusal was seeking to influence Nornickel's dividend policy to fix its own issues.

Rusal did not react to an ask for talk about Thursday.

Nornickel paid around 140 billion roubles ($ 1.37 billion) in dividends for the very first 9 months of 2023, at 915.33 roubles per share. It decided not to pay a full-year dividend in 2015, and has not yet chosen new payments this year.

Interros stated Rusal's claim was putting Nornickel in a. tough position in existing geopolitical conditions, because. it requires the company to divulge delicate info.

Rusal uses dividends from Nornickel to help service its. debt. Rusal's net financial obligation stood at $6.4 billion at the end of the. first half of this year.

(source: Reuters)