Trading in the shares of the gold miner Petropavlovsk has been suspended on the Moscow Exchange since Thursday, July 21. As previously reported by the stock exchange, the company’s securities are excluded from the list of securities admitted to trading.
On June 28, Mosbirzha transferred Petropavlovsk shares from the first quotation list to the third, and on July 12, after the collapse of the gold miner’s quotations, it banned short positions and limited margin transactions for the instrument. Since then, as follows from the materials of the stock exchange, there have been no transactions with Petropavlovsk shares.
On July 18, Petropavlovsk announced that external managers had been appointed in the company, which meant the beginning of insolvency proceedings. Following this, on the same day, the company filed an application to cancel the listing of shares and convertible bonds on the LSE and stop trading in shares on the Moscow Exchange.
Petropavlovsk shares have been excluded from the LSE listing since July 20.
The inclusion of Gazprombank, which was the main creditor and buyer of Petropavlovsk products, in the UK sanctions list made it difficult for the company to sell gold and service its debt, the gold miner began to miss interest payments.
In April, Gazprombank demanded early repayment of $201 mn from Petropavlovsk, including interest on the parent company’s loan, and $87.1 mn on the subsidiaries’ credit lines. And shortly after that, he transferred the rights of claim under the obligation of the parent company to a company associated with the UMMC, and „daughters” – to the company „Nordic” . However, this did not free the gold miner from the early repayment of obligations.
Petropavlovsk is mining gold deposits in the Amur Region and is one of the top 5 Russian gold miners. Konstantin Strukov remains the largest shareholder of Petropavlovsk with a share of about 29%.