The holding company of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska on Friday denied a report it was in talks to buy a stake in Canadian car parts maker Magna International from founder Frank Stronach, a news agency reported.

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According to Reuters, Austrian daily Oesterreich, citing unidentified “insiders”, had reported Deripaska, owner of Russian carmaker GAZ, was among Russian investors eyeing the stake, and that his talks were the “most concrete”.


But Basic Element, the holding company for Deripaska’s assets, told the news agency it was not holding such talks.


“With Magna we are cooperating exclusively on a production level,” press secretary Vadim Bely said in a written reply to questions from Reuters. “At the end of 2006, together with GAZ, a joint venture was created to construct an automobile component business in Nizhny Novgorod.”


Magna International Europe spokesman Daniel Witzani declined to comment to the news agency on what he called “rumours”. GAZ spokesman Vladimir Torin reportedlyneither confirmed nor denied the report, saying Magna was among companies GAZ talked to about production cooperation.

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Reuters noted that Stronach grew up in Austria and emigrated to Canada in the 1950s where he built the company that later became Magna. His family trust owns 66% of the vote-wielding Class B shares in Magna.


It added that Magna, which also has facilities in Austria, formed a joint venture with GAZ last year to make plastic car parts and is discussing joint projects with AvtoVAZ, another Russian car maker.