According to Jacob Plieth of the Wall Street Journal, if the Rusal IPO goes as planned later this month, it will be a “latter-day miracle.” As you recall, Goldman Sachs declined to be an underwriter for this deal and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has dragged its feet, even though completing this complex IPO would mean millions in fees and additional revenue for the exchange and the investment bankers willing to bring troubled Russian companies to the international capital markets counter.
Rusal is a company that operates with $16 billion in debt and even with a partial sale of Norilsk Nickel and the pending partial IPO, there are doubts that a company hasn’t reported operational profitability can keep up with its interest payments.
