Dedicated to Professor Duilio Arigoni on the occasion of his 75th birthday Coenzyme F 430 pentamethyl ester 2 was partially hydrolyzed to a mixture of the five F 430 tetramethyl esters 7 ± 11, which were separated by HPLC and identified by means of a full NMR characterization. The tetramethyl ester with a free COOH group at the side chain at C(3) of F 430 was coupled to the N-terminus of the peptidic spacerÀligand construct 12 selected and studied as described before. The UV/VIS and NMR spectra in CH 2 Cl 2 /3,3,3-trifluoroethanol 6 : 1 show that the new derivative, the Ni II (3 3 -dehydroxy-8 3 ,12 2 ,13 3 ,18 2tetra-O-methyl-F 430-3 3 -yl)-l-prolyl-l-prolyl-N p -methyl-l-histidine methyl ester (13), is an intramolecular, pentacoordinate, paramagnetic complex. In the same solvent system, the parent 3 3 ,8 3 ,12 2 ,13 3 ,18 2 -penta-Omethyl-F 430 (2) is four coordinate and diamagnetic even in the presence of equimolar 1H-imidazole. Protonation of the axially coordinating histidine residue of 13 gave the diamagnetic tetracoordinate base-off form, which allowed us to establish the constitution of 13 by NMR.