Rusal Shares for the Masses.

United Co. Rusal has made it easier for retail investors hoping to buy a chunk of its stock.

On Monday the company began trading a reduced board lot size of 1,000, down from 6,000. That means that at its closing price of 10.20 Hong Kong dollars （US$1.31） Tuesday, an investor with as little as HK$10,200 to spare can now take a bet on the Russian company, the world’s biggest aluminum producer by output.

Rusal bills itself as a play on Chinese demand for aluminum that produces the metal more cheaply than its Chinese rivals because of access to cheap Siberian hydropower.

The company said in a statement in November that the move would help to “improve the liquidity of the shares and enable the company to attract more investors.” In the last week, its trading volume has ranged from about 1.5 million to 5 million shares a day.

In October the company cut the board lot size to 6,000 shares from 24,000. The larger-than-normal board lot size was set by Hong Kong regulators to deter retail investors from investing in Rusal shares.

Steven Leung, sales director at UOB Kay Hian in Hong Kong, said the move won’t bring immediate benefits because ultimately it’s the company’s fundamentals that matter.

Mr. Leung said Rusal’s financial health is heavily tied to aluminum prices, which have failed to reach the same sorts of highs as commodities such as copper and silver have this year because of an over-supply globally.

“Doing these technical things isn’t going to do much to help the stock,” he said.

Rusal is down 5.6% from its listing price of HK$10.80 in January. The stock has only breached its listing price once, on November 8 when it traded at HK$11.20, but has never closed above HK$10.80. Aluminum Corp. of China, or Chalco, is down 16.1% year to date and Alcoa Inc. has lost 10.92% in the same period.

However, Rusal has been taking substantial steps to pay down its crippling debt load, and said in its third quarter results last month that it was ahead of its 2010 debt-reduction forecasts by 73%.

Alex Latzer, an analyst at Daiwa Capital Markets in Hong Kong who has an “outperform” rating on the stock, said Rusal has in fact been able to generate cash successfully to pay down debt and “transfer value from debt holders to equity holders.”

Part of the reason the stock has been languishing below its listing price, according to Mr. Latzer, is because the valuation was too high when it listed.

“It should have been listed at HK$9 or so,” he said.

Rusal’s experience may indicate that despite the stock exchange’s best efforts to lure commodities companies to list here, Hong Kong still lacks a depth of investor knowledge in the sector compared to markets such as London and Australia. In addition, because Rusal isn’t listed in its natural home, coverage of the stock in Hong Kong is still thin, though listing depositary receipts earlier this month on the Moscow stock exchange the company may help address the liquidity issue.

Lowering the barrier for entry for retail investors could boost liquidity in the stock over time. But Rusal probably isn’t suffering from a lack of publicity. It’s controlling shareholder, Oleg Deripaska, is one of Russia’s most powerful oligarchs, and a figure of some controversy given past allegations that he had connections to organized crime. Mr. Deripaska has denied any criminal ties and has never been charged with a crime.

As Mr. Latzer said, “some investors simply won’t touch it.”