MOSCOW, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The board of Russia's top gold producer Polyus Gold will discuss buying a 50-percent-plus-one-share stake in Kazakh gold miner Kazakhgold at a meeting on Sept. 30, Interfax reported on Friday.
The news agency quoted an unnamed source close to Polyus' shareholders as saying that the acquisition may be for cash and Polyus shares.
Kazakhgold said in a statement that it had received an offer to sell 50.1 percent of its share capital for a mix of cash and shares, although it did not say who had made the offer.
'There can be no certainty that any partial offer for the issued share capital of the company will be forthcoming nor as to the terms on which such an offer might be made,' a Kazakhgold statement said.
Polyus declined to comment. Interros, an investment vehicle for Vladimir Potanin, one of Polyus' two major shareholders, could not be reached for comment.
'The issue of international expansion is on the agenda of the board meeting,' a spokesman for ONEXIM Group, an investment vehicle of the second-largest shareholder Mikhail Prokhorov said. He declined to elaborate.
Kazakhgold is Kazakhstan's largest gold miner. It produced 232,060 ounces of gold in 2007. Polyus produced 1.2 million ounces last year.
Recent Russian media reports said ONEXIM had offered to buy a 35 percent Polyus stake controlled by Potanin [ID:nL023092] and that a similar offer had been made by tycoon Suleyman Kerimov [ID:nLQ417377].
(Reporting by Aleksandras Budrys; editing by Simon Jessop) tf.TFN-Europe_newsdesk@thomsonreuters.com cmr COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2008. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News.
The news agency quoted an unnamed source close to Polyus' shareholders as saying that the acquisition may be for cash and Polyus shares.
Kazakhgold said in a statement that it had received an offer to sell 50.1 percent of its share capital for a mix of cash and shares, although it did not say who had made the offer.
'There can be no certainty that any partial offer for the issued share capital of the company will be forthcoming nor as to the terms on which such an offer might be made,' a Kazakhgold statement said.
Polyus declined to comment. Interros, an investment vehicle for Vladimir Potanin, one of Polyus' two major shareholders, could not be reached for comment.
'The issue of international expansion is on the agenda of the board meeting,' a spokesman for ONEXIM Group, an investment vehicle of the second-largest shareholder Mikhail Prokhorov said. He declined to elaborate.
Kazakhgold is Kazakhstan's largest gold miner. It produced 232,060 ounces of gold in 2007. Polyus produced 1.2 million ounces last year.
Recent Russian media reports said ONEXIM had offered to buy a 35 percent Polyus stake controlled by Potanin [ID:nL023092] and that a similar offer had been made by tycoon Suleyman Kerimov [ID:nLQ417377].
(Reporting by Aleksandras Budrys; editing by Simon Jessop) tf.TFN-Europe_newsdesk@thomsonreuters.com cmr COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2008. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News.