* Says $161 million for company, balance for shareholders
* Food retailer says priced GDRs at $11
* Total market capitalisation $2.95 billion
* Mail.RU, Mostotrest likely to follow in coming days
* Moscow bourse RTS planning IPO for 2011
(Adds CEO, source comment, background, detail, share price)
MOSCOW, Nov 2 (Reuters) - O'Key, Russia's third-biggest food retailer, raised $420 million for shareholders and its expansion plans in an initial public offering in London on Tuesday.
O'Key is one of a string of Russian companies floating on global stock markets as investor sentiment improves following a barren summer.
Internet investment firm Mail.RU is close to raising $500 million, also in London, while construction firm Mostotrest was expected to price its Moscow IPO later this week.
O'Key's IPO was priced at $11 per global depository receipt (GDR), just below the mid-point of an indicated $9.9-$12.9 range. The GDRs were trading at $10.87 at 0940 GMT.
Sources had told Reuters strong interest in O'Key's shares came from Britain and the United States. "It was comfortably oversubscribed in the end," one source said.
The $420 million is the most a Russian company has raised in an IPO since aluminium company UC RUSAL raised $2.2 billion in Hong Kong in January.
The IPO valued O'Key at nearly $3 billion. It said it would use $161 million of the proceeds to improve short-term debt and grow the group. "We are confident that we have the skills as well as the capacity to deliver on our strategy for further growth," chief executive Patrick Longuet said.
The balance will be divided among four main shareholders.
Dmitry Korzhev and Dmitry Troitckii, via investment vehicle Brookvalley, will sell 11.3 million shares to split $124 million between them. The other two beneficiary are fellow entrepreneurs Boris Volchek and Hillar Teder.
Separately, Moscow's dollar-traded bourse RTS said on Tuesday it was putting together plans to float in 2011.
Chairman Roman Goryunov said the group wanted to boost capitalisation and growth in the CIS, adding most main stock markets were already traded. (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova, John Bowker, Olga Popova and Kylie Maclellan; Writing by John Bowker)