Mikhail Fridmans Alfa Bank has again filed lawsuits against Oleg Deripaskas companies, this time against Rusal enterprises, and the truce between the businessmen appears to have finally collapsed. The story of debts, restructuring and pressure on creditors shows how one hard move by the bank can affect other lenders. The article gives details of the court dispute, claim amounts and the aluminum holding's response.

Mikhail Fridman’s Alfa-Bank has filed another lawsuit against structures of Oleg Deripaska, this time against Rusal enterprises. The businessmen’s truce, reached with the mediation of President Dmitry Medvedev, has finally fallen apart. Alfa’s position may affect other banks — creditors of the businessman who want to recover their debts, experts warn.
Alfa-Bank continues to file lawsuits against Oleg Deripaska’s companies. On Tuesday, the bank filed a claim for 73.5 million rubles against OJSC Siberian-Urals Aluminum Company and OJSC Rusal Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant, according to materials from the Moscow Arbitration Court. On Friday, the bank had already won a lawsuit to recover 502.6 million rubles from another Deripaska structure — Glavstroy, which consolidates the businessman’s real estate assets. Glavstroy then complained that Alfa-Bank’s position toward Bazel companies had not changed, despite the fact that Alfa Group’s largest beneficiary, Mikhail Fridman, had promised a “constructive dialogue.”
Deripaska and Fridman agreed to the truce last week precisely after President Medvedev sharply criticized the position of lending institutions trying at any cost to recover debts.
Medvedev, in particular, said that an organization, even if it has a legitimate set of claims, large or not very large, should not have the ability to stop the work of a major holding company. The businessmen then issued a joint statement saying that there was no conflict and that they themselves were “bound by personal friendship.”
However, the businessmen’s truce did not last long: Alfa’s lawsuits were not only not withdrawn, but continue to arrive. Formally, the bank did not violate any promises.
“The businessmen’s statement did not say that Alfa would withdraw the lawsuits and that Deripaska’s structures would not repay the loans.
The coordination process is underway, but the bank is waiting for steps from Bazel companies (which manages Deripaska’s assets),” says a source close to Alfa-Bank, quoted by Gazeta.Ru. The bank needs to protect the interests of about 3 million of its depositors and corporate clients; “we cannot make concessions to our debtors to their detriment,” he emphasizes. An official comment from Alfa-Bank could not be obtained.
“Alfa’s firm position deserves respect. It is logical that a lending institution does not want to show losses on loans,” says Marat Gabitov, an analyst at Unicredit Securities. In the expert’s opinion, the bank may count on receiving additional collateral for Bazel’s loans in the form of company assets.
The aluminum holding is unhappy with such a position by the bank. “We invited Alfa-Bank to a constructive dialogue and offered them to support an agreement to defer principal debt payments for two months, which was signed with international banks and supported by Russian ones, as well as to agree with them on the terms of restructuring. Alfa-Bank is not engaging in dialogue and refused to support this agreement,” Rusal told Gazeta.Ru.
The agreement, signed in early March with international creditor banks, concerned the postponement of repayment of a $7.4 billion debt. “Now foreign banks — the company’s creditors — are using their authority to persuade Alfa to join the agreement,” say the aluminum holding company.
Recently, the aluminum producers managed to reach an agreement with another of their creditors — Mikhail Prokhorov. The businessman received additional Rusal shares in exchange for $2 billion, and another part of the company’s debt to the entrepreneur — $800 million — was restructured. Alfa, meanwhile, has taken the most uncompromising position: in addition to filing claims, it is seeking to freeze accounts as security for the lawsuits. Bazel estimates the debts of the holding’s structures to Alfa-Bank at about $650 million, of which about half are problem loans, that is, loans with overdue payments.
“For Rusal, it is important that all creditors act as a united front. Alfa’s active efforts to recover debts may lead other banks that have extended loans to also want to defend their interests in court,” Gabitov does not rule out. Lawsuits against other Bazel divisions continue to come in — on Tuesday, Nomos-Bank filed a claim for 1.04 billion rubles against OJSC Glavstroy, OJSC HC Glavmosstroy, and OJSC Mospromstroymaterialy. The claims are related to non-fulfillment of obligations under a credit agreement.