The greatest prize from the new “Shares for Loans” scandal looks to be Norilsk Nickel, as the Wall Street Journal reports on the creeping nationalization of one monster of a metals company.  Neither Potanin or Deripaska are willing to describe the state’s new role in their company as a nationalization, but that soon may change.

“The oligarchs have gotten a lot weaker and the state has gotten a lot stronger,” said a Moscow banker.

Norilsk’s two largest shareholders, billionaire businessmen Vladimir Potanin and Oleg Deripaska, said the financial crisis roiling Russia’s economy had forced them to end their battle for control and focus on rebuilding the company’s battered market capitalization.