Russia firms, Kuwait investor in $1 bln power fund

KUWAIT/ST PETERSBURG, Russia, June 6 (Reuters) - Kuwait's Fouad Alghanim & Sons signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia's Inter RAO (IRAO.MM) and VTB Bank (VTBR.MM) to invest up to $1 billion in power projets, the sides said late on Friday.

"The parties have agreed to create an investment fund for power generation inside the territory of the Russian Federation as well as in Gulf countries in the Arab world," Alghanim adviser Stanislav Yankovets told Reuters in Kuwait.

Yankovets and VTB Capital's head of real estate and infrastructure funds, Viktor Makshantsev, said the fund would ultimately manage $1 billion in investments, depending on the projects it chooses.

"We are talking about building power grids, power plants, desalination plants and possibly even nuclear power plants," said Yevgeny Dod, chief executive of Inter RAO, the Russian government-controlled power trader.

Inter RAO manages the Russian state power industry's international projects, many of them in former Soviet republics, often inherited from the now-defunct state power monopoly.

He said the fund was already considering projects in Jordan and Syria, adding that North Africa was also a potential target for projects.

For a story from the St Petersburg Economic Forum on Russian efforts to court Arab investment, see [ID:nL4674509].

TAKE A LOOK-Russia's St Petersburg Economic Forum [nFORUMRU] (Reporting by Eman Goma in Kuwait and Tatyana Yegorova in St Petersburg; writing by Melissa Akin in Moscow; Editing by Keiron Henderson)