MOSCOW — Companies belonging to two of Russia’s richest men are among the first recipients of a $50 billion bailout program. The project, like so much else here, is opaque in its details but has resulted in some of the nation’s oil windfall being funneled to well-connected Kremlin insiders.
Under the plan being put in motion this week, money is channeled through the state development bank Vneshekonombank, known as VEB, whose chairman is Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin. The stated goal is to help Russian industrialists refinance loans to Western banks, with aid flowing quickest to those companies at risk of having assets seized as collateral by foreign owners.
Critics charge that the bailout is another example of the cronyism here and a lack of transparency.
In the largest loan to come to light so far, Rusal, the aluminum and mining company of the billionaire Oleg V. Deripaska, Russia’s richest man, was awarded $4.5 billion to repay a syndicate of Western banks led by PNB Paribas. Without the loan, Mr. Deripaska, who is seen as a close ally of Mr. Putin, could have been compelled to surrender 25 percent of the Norilsk Nickel company, which he had put up as collateral.
Separately, Mikhail M. Fridman, the principal partner in Alfa Group, an investment company, was granted a $2 billion letter of credit from VEB that rescued the most valuable asset in the group’s telecommunications holdings, VimpelCom, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and operates under the Beeline brand in Russia.
By Friday, shares pledged as collateral for a loan from Deutsche Bank had fallen below the triggers for margin calls, and the bank could have seized the 44 percent stake in VimpelCom in what would have been a major blow to the Alfa Group.
“They were minutes away,” from losing the company, said a representative for a large European company familiar with the talks.
Mr. Fridman had called Deutsche Bank executives on Friday, after shares dropped below the trigger point, asking for additional time in a gentlemen’s agreement, said the executive, who did not want to be named discussing confidential talks. Deutsche Bank agreed.
But on Monday, a judge in the Siberian city of Omsk had issued a surprise injunction freezing trades in VimpelCom shares owned by Altimo, Alfa telecom’s subsidiary, essentially preventing Deutsche Bank from accessing its collateral even if it wanted to. The case was unrelated to the loan negotiations, but the timing was suspicious, according to the European executive.
By Tuesday, the loan guarantee was in place and on Wednesday the court released the shares.
By Thursday, VEB had awarded about $10 billion of the $50 billion bailout package, according to the authorities, though the recipients had not been formally identified. The Alfa Group, led by men on Russia’s Forbes magazine list of the country’s wealthiest individuals, may be among the larger recipients as their other businesses are in line for state bailouts, too.
A deputy prime minister, Igor I. Sechin, said energy companies including TNK-BP, partly owned by Alfa, would receive $9 billion to help refinance Western bank debt. The group owns the X5 grocery store chain, also seen as likely to win a state loan.