US Edition 
Polyus in focus on stake sale
Almost a fifth of the Russian gold producer has changed ownership
As the wider stock market ended the year on a quiet note, Polyus Gold drew attention after a stake in the yellow metal producer worth £1bn changed hands.
The Russian gold miner said that an 18.5pc shareholding had passed from Russian entrepreneur Amirkhan Mori to Oleg Mkrtchan, a Ukrainian businessman with a background in the steel industry.
Shares in the company closed the session down ½p at 181¼p, valuing Polyus Gold at almost £5.5bn.
The stake sale is of interest, not just because it means a new investor has purchased almost a fifth of the company in one fell swoop, but also because this particular shareholding happens to have changed ownership rather frequently over the past two years.
Mr Mori, a business associate of Polyus’s single-biggest shareholder, Suleiman Kerimov, bought the holding off his billionaire brother Zelimkhan Mutsoev in August 2013. Mr Mutsoev himself had not been a long-term investor in the gold miner, however, having only purchased the Polyus stake six months before he sold it to his brother.
Curious changes to Polyus’s shareholder register aside, the last trading session of 2014 was an uneventful one for the broader market.
After falling heavily a day earlier amid worries about the weak oil price and Greece, the FTSE 100 stabilised to edge 19.09 points higher to 6,566.09. Trading volumes were light and, given it was New Year’s Eve, the session was shortened to a half day.
For the year, the FTSE 100 was down 183 points, or 2.7pc, the first time the index had recorded an annual loss since 2011. The mid-cap FTSE 250 did better and was up 95.13 points at 16,085.44 on the day, a 0.6pc gain that brought its gain over the last 12 months to just 0.9pc.
With oil markets remaining turbulent and the price of Brent crude slipping below $56 a barrel at one point, oil and gas stocks remained weak. BG Group slid 3.6p to 865p, Tullow Oil lost 1½p to 413.9p and Royal Dutch Shell’s B share was down 6p at £22.33.
Online gambling group Bwin.party digital entertainment lost as much as 7.1pc in early trade as investors reacted to the profit warning the company sounded after the close of trade on Tuesday.
The shares then rallied to close up 1.6p, or 1.4pc, at 117.8p, a rebound that traders attributed to hopes that the group will be bought. Playtech and Canada’s Amaya Gaming have been named as potential bidders for the company. Bwin, which has not identified any suitors, said in its latest update that it remained in talks with “several parties” about potential deals.
Meanwhile, Lonmin, the platinum miner, slipped as much as 2.1pc after disclosing that it had encountered further problems at its South African plant. The group said it had temporarily shut down a second furnace after discovering a fault.
The halt comes less than a month after Lonmin stopped production at another furnace so that it could be rebuilt following a leak. The shares rallied to close up 1.1p at 177.8p, a 0.6pc advance.