RUSAL confirms will float within 3 years

United Company RUSAL, the world's top aluminum producer, confirmed it plans a stock market flotation within three years but said on Wednesday it has not yet appointing banks to advise on the listing.

"Our stated intent is to list ... in the next three years," Artem Volynets, the company's strategy and corporate development director, told the Reuters Global Mining and Steel Summit in London.

"The board has not made a decision as to when, where or any other parameters," he said.

The purpose of the listing was to raise money to fund possible acquisitions as well as build new projects, he said.

JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley were most frequently touted as likely advisors on the listing, he said, but RUSAL has not officially appointed any bank.

"We have not mandated advisors but have been in discussions with a number of banks," he said.

Volynets said UC RUSAL was under no pressure to seek a credit rating, nor did it have any plans to launch a Eurobond issue.

The company, formed in March by a merger of aluminum producers RUSAL and SUAL, along with assets belonging to trading firm Glencore, was concentrating on bringing those three strands together.

"Our first priority is to complete the integration of the companies," Volynets said. "We are making good progress, I don't see any substantial challenges to integration."

The timing of the IPO would be dictated by the pace of the integration and conditions in the capital markets, he said.

RUSAL's annual output of 4 million tonnes of aluminum gives it 12.5 percent of the global market for the metal, Volynets said. Alcoa (AA.N: Quote, Profile, Research -- which this month launched a hostile bid for rival Alcan (AL.TO: Quote, Profile, Research -- produced 3.55 million tonnes in 2006.

In the longer term, RUSAL would invest heavily in power generation as it aims to produce all the electricity it needs in order to make aluminum. "We see ourselves as an energy and metals company," Volynets said.

RUSAL is building the Boguchany power station jointly with hydroelectric power firm Hydro GOK and recently signed an agreement with Russian atomic energy agency Rosatomprom to look at the possibility of building a nuclear power plant and aluminum smelter in the Russian Far East.