Interest grows in Corus by Russian investors.

A number of Russian investors have been showing intense interest in Corus in the past month. They include Alicher Ousmanov who controls a number of key Russian steel interests together with the Lebidinskiy ore mines and who has now acquired 11.03% of Corus. He is seeking a seat on the board.

Mr Ousmanov has been followed by Oleg Deripaska, who runs the Base Element group and holds 75% of Rusal, the aluminium producer. Base Element is joint owner with Mr Ousmanov of Urals Steels and has acquired a minority stake in Corus estimated at slightly below 3%. Mr Ousmanov may also seek a seat on the board and is expected to get support for this, according to the director-general David Geovanis.

Steel industry analysts in Moscow have said the logic behind Ousmanov's decision is to try to confront the protectionist barriers which the USA and European Union have thrown up to prevent the arrival of Russian steel on their markets. The operation in a sense parallels that recent acquisition of Rouge in the USA by Severstal for $285M and which is also aimed at countering US protectionism. Vassiliy Nikolayev, an analyst with the investment bank Troika Dialog, has said it is expected that an increasing number of Russian companies will try to improve access to Western markets, noting that there are a number of Western companies that could be acquired at a good price.