Deripaska to buy "Futura plus" – Russian billionaire to take over property of Stanko Subotić Cane

Russian company "Rus pečat", the property of famous businessman and billionaire Oleg Deripaska, has bought distributing company "Futura plus", which has over 1,150 retail facilities in Serbia and controls 22% of the press distribution market. By the end of the week, the sales contract will be verified in the Palace of Justice in order for the additional capitalization to be carried out and the obligations of "Futura plus" to be paid as soon as possible.

Special seal on this sales contract will be put by Oleg Deripaska himself, who will arrive in Belgrade in October, accompanied by Russian President Dimitrij Medvedov.

Takeover of “Futura plus” will be the first Deripaska’s investment on the territory of Serbia, but he already participated, on two occasions, in the tender for sale of Mining Smelter Basin (RTB) “Bor” through his Cyprus-based company SMR (“Soyuz Metal Resource”). The journalists from “Danas” were yesterday (September 23, 2009) unable to find out how much money would Deripaska set aside for the takeover of "Futura", which has been in the possession of Stanko Subotić Cane since the end of year 2006. The journalists from "Danas" learnt from the unofficial sources that the Russian partner had promised to repay all the obligations of "Futura" and he had guaranteed that neither workers would be laid off nor the field of work would be changed because "Rus pečat" was in press distribution business as well. "Futura" has 3,180 workers whose average pay amounts to about 17,000 RSD.

Nebojša Jestrović, the Director General of "Futura plus", said at the recent press conference that the company was experiencing problems and that there were certain unpaid debts for the sold print. The debts of "Futura" amount to about 200m RSD.

- The debt to company "Ringier" amounts to about 40m RSD, we owe about 20m RSD to "Večernje Novosti", 40m RSD to "Press", 55m RSD to "PNM", and 9m RSD to "Politika". Our overall debts amount to 202m RSD – said Jestrović and explained that the claims of "Futura" were not small and that they amounted to 250m RSD. Jestrović also said that "Delta" owed about 60m RSD to "Futura plus", "Idea" owed 15m RSD, "Miloščić" - 20m RSD, "Bega pres" – 33m RSD, "Štampa Crne Gore" – 5m RSD, while the debt of small vendors amounted to about 40m RSD.

People in "Futura plus" believe that the arrival of new strategic partner will ensure better days for the company because Oleg Deripaska is not just anyone. According to magazine "Forbs", he is a 39-year-old businessman whose capital of 16.8 billion USD makes him the second richest man in Russia, right after Roman Abramovič.

The operations of "Futura plus" drew the attention of the public last week when the Association of Media decided to boycott the newsstands of "Futura plus" because of the piled debts. There are no newspapers “Alo”, “Blic”, “Večernje novosti”, "Politika", "Sport", "Sportski žurnal", "Press" and "Privredni pregled" in the newsstands of “Futura plus” any more, while "Danas", "Glas javnosti", "Kurir", "Pravda" and "Borba" are still in the offer of that company since their publishers are not members of the Association of Media that has organized the boycott.

Businessman close to Kremlin

Oleg Vladimirovič Deripaska was born in 1968. He spent his childhood in a village in the south of Russia, and the living standard of his family at the time was minimal. He graduated from two faculties – physics and business, and he started trading in stocks of aluminum factories as a broker on Russian Stock Exchange while still a student, but it was not until he founded his own company "Rosaluminprodukt" that he became rich. Together with another two of Russian oligarchs - Roman Abramovič and Boris Berezovski – he founded company "Siberian Aluminum” in 1999, which merged with "Sibneft" into giant holding company "Rusal" one year later. At the moment, his main company is "Basic Element", through which he expanded his business activities to automobiles, civil engineering, aviation, financial services and energy. Russian media write that Deripaska is a personal friend of Prime Minister Putin, and that he has assumed various positions within the Government. He is the President of the International Chamber of commerce of Russian Federation, a member of the Government’s Council of Entrepreneurs, and he receieved a high state decoration – the Order of Friendship of Peoples, in 1999. Deripaska controls 70% of trade in aluminum in Russia through holding "Rusal", and about 10% of trade in that metal in the world through international companies.

( Note: complete text is taken over from newspaper "Danas" of September 24, 2009)