Kudrin: Alrosa Not Planning IPO

Alrosa is not planning an IPO, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told Interfax today. “There is no plan for an IPO thus far,” he commented to press in Tokyo.

This is a direct contradiction to comments made by Alrosa President Sergey Vybornov in December, who said that the company was planning an initial public offering for within “a year or a year and a half.” Alrosa’s IPO could be the largest flotation of the year, if it goes forward in 2008, worth around $10 billion.

Kudrin said that the only thing being considered at the moment is Alrosa’s restructuring from a closed (ZAO) to an open (OAO) joint-stock company, a process that will take several months. “It will become an open joint-stock company soon, at the moment the procedure of enlarging the federal part of the capital is over,” he said.