RUSSIA’s biggest companies are pressing ahead with plans for international flotations, ignoring warning shots from their home regulators, which have vowed to stop the migration of capital abroad.

Rusal, the aluminium giant owned by Oleg Deripaska, Britain’s sixth-richest man with an estimated fortune of £4.4 billion, has said that it intends to float. It is one of the biggest private companies, with sales of £2.4 billion and 63,000 staff.

Rusal’s chief executive, Alexander Bulygin, 36, told The Sunday Times: “We are very close to announcing that our company is fully compliant with the principles required by the stock exchanges with regard to issues such as corporate governance, transparency and accounting.

“Rusal needs capital to fund its expansion and a float is the most likely tool we will use.”

Three weeks ago Moscow’s financial watchdog began to draft legislation to impede international listings by foreign- registered Russian firms with at least 75% of their total assets in the country unless they first list on the domestic market.

Last week Novatek, Russia’s biggest independent gas producer, announced plans to list its global depository receipts and ordinary shares on the London Stock Exchange. London flotations of Russian companies have totalled $2.4 billion (£1.3 billion) so far this year.

Bulygin, who has been chief executive since 2000, said many Russian oligarchs were planning floats as a hedging tool. He said: “Companies are using floats to hedge against political risks. They hope foreign investors will defend them against any politically motivated tax risks.”

Russia’s most powerful oligarchs are said to be pushing forward plans to float in the next 18 months in case the build-up and aftermath of the 2008 presidential election hurts investor confidence.

In a survey last year, Deripaska, known as the aluminium king, was rated as the “third most vulnerable” tycoon in Vladimir Putin’s clampdown. He has previously been turned down for an American passport, and a former associate alleged in legal papers that he acquired aluminium smelters by aggressive business methods.

He is married to a member of the family of former president Boris Yeltsin, and owns a Grade I Regency house in Belgrave Square worth £25m.

Bulygin said: “Of course I can’t speak for Mr Deripaska and one cannot be 100% sure of anything, but I am extremely confident that Rusal has no tax problems or any issues that would attract an investigation.”

Rusal was created in 2000 with the amalgamation of Deripaska’s mining assets with those of Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea Football Club.

The City believes that Rusal is one of the most attractive Russian companies coming to market. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia had to import bauxite because it has no reserves of its own. As soon as the Iron Curtain fell, Rusal was the first to move abroad to buy mines. Now Rusal operates across five continents and recently acquired a mine in Queensland, Australia.

The company has already had success in the capital markets, last year raising $800m in a five-year syndicated loan in the largest-ever credit to the country’s metal industry to date.

Bulygin said no final decision had been made as to whether Rusal would float in London or New York, although he made it clear that London was the favourite. “London is close to Russia, it is the business capital of Europe and, unlike the British, we like the climate here,” he said.

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