The attraction of salts

The company "Silvinite" changed the owners. The new hosts of the 44 percent package were the State Duma deputy Zelimkhan Mutsoev (24 percent) and the co-owner of Sibuglemet coal Anatoly Skurov (20 percent). The deal was completed last Friday, August 13. The cost of the purchased asset is estimated at 2.5-3 billion dollars.

The transaction was not agreed with Suleiman Kerimov. He was “pleasantly surprised” what had happened.

Photo: Maxim Kimerling / Kommersant

Sylvinite announced the sale of shares the next day, August 14. The message published on the company's website said that the shareholders of Eventus AktiengesellSchaft, Hustell Trading Limited, Ibh Beteiligungs und Handelges and Ri Realinvest SA. According to the Kommersant newspaper, the sellers were the former general director of the company Peter Kondrashov and his partner Anatoly Lomakin. Most likely, they controlled four offshore companies.

Zelimkhan Mutsoev and Anatoly Skurov acquired stocks in the interests of the owner of Uralkalia Suleiman Kerimov, the newspaper sources say. The participation of Mutsoev and Skurov was necessary to avoid coordination with the federal antimonopoly service, the interlocutor of the publication says. At the same time, the representative of Kerimov denied this information.

Anatoly Skurov told Vedomosti that he bought stocks for himself. “The asset is interesting, plus I am well acquainted with this industry: in the Soviet years, I was engaged in the development and production of equipment not only for coal production, but also in potassium salts,” he said.

Sources of Vedomosti assure that the transaction has not been agreed with Kerimov. And he was “pleasantly surprised”, learning about the purchase of shares by Skurov and Mutsoyev.

Despite this, talking about the unification of the largest potassium manufacturers - Sylvinite and Uralkalia - are already going on. The owners of the two companies are negotiating this. But, it is worth noting that the new owners of Sylvinite promised that they would not change the trader, an international potassium company. “Uralkali” also remains with its export mediator - the “Belarusian potassium company”.

The merger of the two enterprises is more than possible. Now the ownership of Suleiman Kerimov is 20 percent of Sylvinite shares. He purchased them in June 2010, along with a package of “Uralkali” shares from the Perm entrepreneur Dmitry Rybolovlev. Kerimov owns 53.2 percent of Uralkali, together with the allies Alexander Nesis and Filaret Galchev.