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Oligarch at heart of Tory funding row gains Kremlin support in repaying banks that backed Norilsk stake

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will bail out Oleg Deripaska, the oligarch at the centre of the “yachtgate” affair, with a $2.5bn (£1.6bn) loan refinancing this week.

Mr Deripaska has until the end of the month to find the money to repay the syndicate of 13 banks, including Royal Bank of Scotland and Merrill Lynch, that provided a loan so that he could take a 25 per cent stake in mining giant Norilsk Nickel.

He approached Vnesheconombank (VEB), the state-owned bank where Mr Putin is chairman of the supervisory board, earlier this month to refinance the loan.

Sources close to Rusal, the aluminium group that Mr Deripaska owns, and which he used to buy the stake, said the Kremlin has confirmed that it will provide the money. A London-based banker who was involved in the original syndicate said “positive noises are coming out of the Kremlin”.

However, he added that the lenders would give no more than a seven-day extension to Friday’s deadline before they seized control of the Norilsk stake. “The signs are favourable but we’ll give him Mr Deripaska a week extension tops – we can’t let this go on for weeks or months.”

There had been reports that the Kremlin would demand the Norilsk stake in return. However, it is understood VEB has not set this as a condition of the refinancing and would rather a Russian held a major stake in one of the country’s most powerful companies, rather than a set of overseas banks.

Rusal has been involved in a power struggle for Norilsk since last year. Mr Deripaska wants to merge the groups to create a national mining champion, but rival tycoon Vladimir Potanin, who in effect controls Norilsk, is against the move.

There are suggestions that the Russian government, which would be able to veto a merger, is starting to support Mr Deripaska’s plans. The Kremlin plans to buy stakes in prominent Moscow-listed companies to support them during the financial crisis.

It is understood that one of the targeted groups is Norilsk, and that the share purchases will begin in the next few weeks. Rusal executives believe the government will vote with them at an extraordinary general meeting on 26 December. Mr Deripaska’s allies have called the vote to change the composition of Norilsk’s board in the hope of loosening Mr Potanin’s grip.

George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, is said to have sought a donation to the Conservative Party from Mr Deripaska aboard his yacht this summer, although Mr Osborne denies soliciting any funds. Nat Roths-child, the hedge fund manager who is a friend of both Mr Deripaska and Lord Mandelson, has since turned on Mr Osborne for apparently leaking comments of a private conversation about Gordon Brown. Lord Mandelson was said to have “dripped pure poison” about Mr Brown during the same trip. Atticus Capital, Mr Rothschild’s hedge fund, has reportedly lost $5bn this year.