Reporting by Anastasia Lyrchikova and Tatiana Voronova; writing by Maria Kiselyova and Polina Devitt; editing by Clarence Fernandez and Ed Osmond

March 23, 2020 - Russian businessman Albert Avdolyan has reached an agreement to buy a 49% stake in the major Elga coal project in Russia from Russian lender Gazprombank, the bank said in a statement on Monday.

Avdolyan’s company A-Property is still in talks to buy the remaining 51% in the project from Russian steel and coal producer Mechel. For indebted Mechel, Elga is the biggest growth asset, but it confirmed last week that it was in talks to sell it to reduce the debt burden.

Elga, one of the world’s biggest coking coal deposits, requires significant further investments to develop. Mechel’s net debt stood at 400 billion roubles ($5 billion) at the end of 2019, mainly to Gazprombank and another bank, VTB.

The businessman may reach an agreement with Mechel by the end of April and become the owner of 100% in the project, two sources familiar with talks told Reuters on Monday.

Mechel is in debt restructuring talks with its creditors, and these discussions directly depend on the result of its Elga negotiations, Mechel said last week.

It was not clear how much funding Avdolyan was offering Mechel for the stake.

Gazprombank and Avdolyan did not disclose the price of their deal on Monday.

According to one of the sources, Gazprombank will get 45 billion roubles ($557 million) for its stake from Avdolyan.

Mechel, according to this source, may get 95 billion roubles for its stake from Avdolyan and use them to repay part of its debt to Gazprombank and VTB in proportion to their share in Mechel’s debt portfolio.

As a result, Gazprombank would get 85-90 billion roubles from both the deals in total, the source added.

A representative of Avdolyan and Mechel declined to comment.

The deal with Avdolyan is profitable for the bank, Gazprombank said in the statement, adding that it has always seen the Elga project as an investment asset.

Gazprombank bought this 49% stake in Elga for 34.4 billion roubles from Mechel as part of the miner’s previous round of debt restructuring talks. That time, Mechel used these proceeds to reduce its debt to another creditor, Sberbank.

VTB and Gazprombank previously agreed not to demand any early debt repayments from Mechel, but this breathing space expires on March 31-April 1. If the deal to sell Elga does not go through, debt restructuring plans will be altered, Mechel said last week.

$1 = 80.7805 roubles