Russian bank VTB is in talks with Chinese companies over a potential investment in energy-to-aluminium group EN+, reported the Financial Times.
London-listed EN+, which was under US sanctions until January this year, controls Rusal, Russia’s largest aluminium producer and the world’s largest outside China. VTB, the Kremlin-controlled bank that owns 21.68% of EN+, has been approached by two Chinese state-related industrial groups about a potential share sale.
Sanctions against EN+ that in effect cut it off from the global economy were lifted in January after its founder Oleg Deripaska, the Russian tycoon sanctioned by the US for his alleged ties to the Russian government, agreed to give up his controlling stake in the company. Shares in EN+ jumped after the US Treasury lifted the restrictions but at $7.16 are about half the price at the time of its November 2017 listing.
