MOSCOW: The outgoing chief executive of Norilsk Nickel who is leaving as part of an agreement to end a shareholder feud will receive a $100 million golden parachute pay-off, the highest in Russian corporate history, a report said Friday.
The shareholders in the mining firm -- aluminium giant Rusal and investment firm Interros -- have agreed the pay-off to Vladimir Strzhalkovsky who has headed the company since 2008, the Vedomosti daily said, quoting Norilsk shareholder sources.
Ex-KGB agent Strzhalkovsky will receive an immediate payment of $50 million, $25 million in half a year and another $25 million in another year, the paper said.
It said that such severance payments had never exceeded $20 million in Russia before, although even higher precedents have been set in the United States.
Billionaire Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich is to pay almost $1.49 billion to acquire a 5.87 percent stake in Norilsk Nickel to help end a feud between oligarchs Oleg Deripaska of Rusal and Vladimir Potanin of Interros.
Abramovich’s surprise entry into the capital of Norilsk was announced last week and is seen as a way of making peace between its main shareholders in a feud that had disturbed the Kremlin.
The deal also sees Potanin become chief executive of Norilsk Nickel -- the world's largest producer of nickel and palladium -- replacing Strzhalkovsky who reportedly had poor relations with Deripaska. (AFP)
