Russian Aluminum Maker Woos Hong Kong Regulators

Rebuffed in its effort to offer shares on the Hong Kong exchange, the Russian aluminum company Rusal shifted tactics on Tuesday toward a longer-term strategy to win over regulators.

Rusal announced that it would appoint two senior Hong Kong officials to its board, The New York Times’s Andrew E. Kramer reported. The officials, the company said, will help steer Rusal through a share offering in Asia, while counseling executives on business tactics in the region.

On Monday, the listing committee of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing considered the Rusal listing but declined to make a decision, news agencies reported, most likely delaying the offering well into next year.

It was a blow to Rusal. And on Tuesday, the company appointed two directors: Elsie Leung, a former Hong Kong secretary of justice and current member of the National People’s Congress of China; and Barry C. Cheung, the chairman of the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange.

“Their expertise will be of great value,” the chief executive of Rusal, Oleg V. Deripaska, said in the statement. He said their acceptance of the appointments was “a strong vote of confidence in the company.”

It might also raise the confidence of Chinese regulators in a Russian company burdened with financial and legal troubles, some of which date to Rusal’s creation in the crime-ridden early years of post-Soviet capitalism.

One former owner, Mikhail Cherney, is suing Rusal in London. He claims he still owns 13 percent of the company in a case with roots in the violent episode of privatization known as the Siberian aluminum wars. The case has cleared jurisdictional challenges and will go to trial next year.

Another concern with Rusal, as generally in Russian business, is possible nationalization.

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