$1.5 Billion I.P.O. for Firm Controlled by Putin Ally Tied to Manafort<br />Mr. Manafort and Mr. Deripaska set up an investment company to buy television stations in Ukraine<br />that eventually unraveled in a $19 million lawsuit filed by Mr. Deripaska in the Cayman Islands, court records show.<br />The Russian energy and aluminum company EN+, which is controlled by a member of President Vladimir V. Putin’s circle of favored businessmen, said on Friday<br />that it had raised $1.5 billion in an initial public offering seen as a major test of investors’ appetite for Russian assets.<br />The offering may draw attention for using the London Stock Exchange, where listing rules are less stringent than in New York, for a transaction<br />that had the effect of funneling money to a Russian state bank that has faced sanctions in both the United States and the European Union, even though EN+ has not faced sanctions.<br />The company is controlled by the Russian oligarch Oleg V. Deripaska, a confidant of the Russian president who once had close ties to Paul J. Manafort, the former Trump<br />campaign manager who was charged this week with money laundering as part of the special counsel inquiry into potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.<br />Mr. Deripaska was never charged with a crime in Russia over the Aluminum Wars,<br />but the United States has for years denied him a visa, suggesting something unseemly in his ascent in the Siberian aluminum industry.
