Russian miner GV Gold joins Moscow IPO rush

Russian miner GV Gold is planning an initial public offering on the Moscow stock exchange, the latest in a rush of Russian listings seeking to tap resurgent investor interest in the country’s assets.

The midsized gold miner, which counts BlackRock as a major shareholder, is seeking a valuation of $1.5bn-$1.8bn, people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times.

GV Gold’s announcement on Monday follows the flotation of discount retailer Fix Price this month — the largest Russian listing since western sanctions were imposed against the country in 2014 — and the IPO of online retailer Ozon in New York late last year.

Those sanctions, imposed after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, damped investor appetite for Russian assets. Fears over the impact of subsequent measures have helped to scupper dozens of proposed, planned and announced Russian IPOs since.

Despite lingering worries over potential new sanctions against Russia from the Biden administration, Moscow’s market has rebounded strongly from its pandemic lows, driven by a surge in global stimulus that has buoyed demand for emerging market assets and a recovery in oil prices.

GV Gold, which shelved a London listing plan in 2007 and a second listing attempt three years ago, said all its major shareholders, including BlackRock funds, would sell shares in the float. The company will not sell shares in the float, it said.

BlackRock owns 18 per cent of the eastern Siberia-focused miner, which is aiming to produce around 300,000 troy ounces this year and reported net profit of $137m last year. Just over 61 per cent of GV Gold is owned by a trio of co-founders.

“Since the very first day we have seen the future of GV Gold as a publicly traded company,” said Vladislav Barshinov, chief executive. “An IPO on [the] Moscow exchange will enable us to take our growth story to a wide range of investors and further diversify our shareholder structure.”

Goldman Sachs International, Sberbank CIB, UBS and VTB Capital are joint global co-ordinators and joint bookrunners for the offering, GV Gold said. Raiffeisen and Sova Capital are co-bookrunners.