Сonspiracy theorists may calm dowm: Norilsk Nickel has disclosed information on the "Digital Investor"

Ivan Petrovsky

The Digital Assets company, operating under an agreement with Project Services LLC controlled by Norilsk Nickel, will acquire up to 0.27% of MMC shares from May 1 to December 31 this year as part of the Digital Investor corporate program, Norilsk Nickel said in a statement. Based on the value of Norilsk Nickel shares at the close of April 13, such a package is estimated at about 6.27 billion rubles.

To put it bluntly, the details of this program were eagerly awaited by both thousands of Norilsk Nickel employees and the company's shareholders. After all, it was nothing less than the free provision of funds for investing in new assets!

A month ago, during a direct line, the management of Norilsk Nickel stated the following:

"Every employee with at least one year of work experience in the company (as of January 1, 2023) receives money from the company to purchase digital financial assets (tokens) linked in value to Norilsk Nickel shares. The more experience an employee has, the more CFA he will receive".

The CFA in this case is the so-called "tokens". Their turnover will be possible on the Atomize blockchain platform, the first in Russia to receive a license from the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

As reported by NI, Rosbank is responsible for the operational part of the program, and the CFA issue is conducted by Digital Assets (not part of Norilsk Nickel), which undertakes to preserve the digital financial resources of Norilsk Nickel employees.

As Vladimir Potanin stated earlier, in 2023 the Digital Investor program will begin in a pilot, trial mode, after which experts will conclude to what extent tokens are convenient and in demand among the workforce.

In the meantime, the employees themselves note three clear "advantages" of the project. Firstly, it is the possibility of crushing tokens to one hundredth part, which not only resembles a ruble with kopecks, but attracts investors with any, even the most modest amounts. Secondly, the procedure for working with tokens guarantees transparency of investments due to distributed registry technology. And thirdly, there are no intermediaries in the relationship between the investor and the Digital Assets company.

Nevertheless, after the announcement of the program, people began to have questions and speculations — is the main shareholder increasing his package in such an intricate way? And won't the "deprived minority shareholders" in the person of Rusal, who received 500 billion rubles in dividends from Norilsk Nickel in previous years, be against it?

But the dots over the I were placed by Norilsk Nickel itself. As it turned out, the number of shares participating in the motivational program is a quarter of a percent — this is negligible for increasing Vladimir Potanin's share to the detriment of other shareholders. In the end, the head of Interros, like Rusal, has the right to buy shares according to the classical scheme, without resorting to inventing new ones.

Therefore, it is easier to believe that over the years Norilsk Nickel and Potanin are still expanding their social policy and launching a real motivational program for tens of thousands of employees. What makes an industrial giant essentially a "people's enterprise".

The Board of Directors of the issuing company will decide on the voting procedure independently.

So attempts to find a "second bottom" in the initiative of Norilsk Nickel are clearly groundless. Against this background, the events at Norilsk Nickel – including the distribution of the digital analogue of the company's shares to employees – may lead to doubts among Rusal employees about the abilities of their management to successfully manage the company in the future.