Gold Miner Polyus Selling 3.5% Stake for $400mn

Polyus Gold International Ltd (PGIL), a holding which controls Russia’s largest gold producer Polyus, said on Wednesday it would sell a 3.5 percent stake in the company via an accelerated bookbuilding (ABB), the Moscow Times reported.

Polyus Gold shares have ridden the wave of rising demand from investors that are back in “risk on” mode. The SPO sold a stake that was part of the 82.44% portfolio held by the holding company Polyus Gold International, controlled by Said Kerimov, the son of billionaire and senator Suleiman Kerimov.

The deal increases the company’s freefloat from 16.67% to 20.51%. PGIL, which currently owns 82.4 percent of Polyus, plans to sell 4.67 million shares. After the deal, PGIL will own 78.9 percent.

Russian sovereign wealth fund RDIF and its partners, including some Middle East funds, will buy some of the shares in Polyus as part of the deal, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.

Shares in Polyus in Moscow closed down 3 percent at 5,320 roubles per share on Wednesday. Based on this price, the ABB deal may be worth about 24.8 billion roubles ($381 million).

Goldman Sachs International, Bank GPB International S.A., J.P. Morgan Securities plc, Sberbank CIB (UK) Limited and VTB Capital plc are acting as book-runners for the placing.

According to BNE Intellinews, foreign investment in Russian equities is becoming increasingly popular after nearly five-years of decline. While the overall index has remained flat, the crises and sanctions have catalysed a consolidation in many sectors and individual corporates have flourished as they increase their market share.

At the same time, Russian companies are paying the highest dividend yields in the world – at least twice the level of the average dividend yield paid by companies included in the benchmark MSCI EM index.