| Interros sells non-core assets Vladimir Potanin continues to get rid of non-core businesses. Interros announced yesterday that the holding company managed to sell shares of enterprises of the Perm engine-building complex at a profit. Interros CEO Andrei Klishas told the Vremya Novostey newspaper that the company expects to receive about $50 million for leaving Perm. However, it is not yet clear who will ultimately get these shares.
Mr. Klishas said that on the evening of February 17, Interros and the Financial and Investment Association Gosinkor Holding entered into two agreements. According to one of them, Vladimir Potanin’s company sold to Gosinkor Holding for $25 million a blocking stake in Aviadvigatel OJSC (an engine design bureau) and shares of several smaller, technologically related Perm enterprises. The other agreement is preliminary. It stipulates that for about another $25 million, Gosinkor Holding will acquire a blocking stake in Perm Motor Plant JSC (PMZ produces aircraft engines and gas pumping stations), but this will only happen if these shares are not purchased by the Canadian company Pratt & Whitney (P&W), which, according to Mr. Klishas, as a strategic partner of Interros, has a preemptive right to purchase Perm assets. A formal offer to the Canadian company has already been sent, and, according to Mr. Klishas' calculations, it will be accepted or rejected by the beginning of April.
The general director of Interros denied the assumptions that appeared in the press yesterday that the final acquirer of the Perm shares is PMZ's competitor, the Rybinsk NPO Saturn. He stated that he was reliably aware of the intentions of the new owner and that “the shares will never fall into the hands of Saturn.” The general designer of Aviadvigatel, Alexander Inozemtsev, also assured the Vremya Novostey newspaper yesterday that the new owner came to his enterprise with a strategic development program.
Deputy Chairman of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Gosinkor Dmitry Manturov painted a somewhat different picture for the Vremya Novostei newspaper. According to him, the shares of Aviadvigatel are credited to the balance sheet not of the FIA Gosinkor Holding, but rather of the FSUE Gosinkor, which is in the process of liquidation according to the presidential decree of February 6, 2003. Mr. Manturov claims that the deal with Perm shares was being worked out before this decree. However, now the securities, as well as all other property of Gosinkor, will be transferred to the disposal of the Ministry of Property. He suggested that subsequently a specialized state company would be created to manage these packages, or the state would make some other decision on this matter. However, in any case, Gosinkor is no longer destined to be a strategic investor in the Perm complex. Mr. Manturov even believes that the Federal State Unitary Enterprise will not buy back PMZ shares in April if Pratt & Whitney refuses them. The buyout may be carried out by the same future specialized state company or by someone else by decision of the state.
It is also not yet clear who will be the owner of another non-core asset of Interros, which Vladimir Potanin planned to sell - a blocking stake in the company RUSIA Petroleum (operator for the development of the Kovyktinskoye gas and Verkhnechonskoye oil fields in the Irkutsk region). The most likely buyers now appear to be two structures: the alliance of BP and TNK, which are also participants in the project (BP owns more than 33% of the shares of RUSIA Petroleum, TNK - about 29%), and Gazprom, which wants to enter the project, but does not having money for this. The press services of BP and TNK told the Vremya Novostei newspaper that they had not yet received an offer from Interros regarding the sale of Irkutsk assets, but if it were received, it “will be carefully studied.” It was not possible to get comments from Gazprom on this topic yesterday. According to experts, the most likely buyer of this asset is still BP and TNK, but if a political decision is made to enter Gazprom’s project, it will most likely be implemented. True, it is not clear how, because Mr. Potanin received quite substantial money for his already sold non-core assets, which Gazprom has not yet seen. Mikhail KUKUSHKIN, Nikolay GORELOV |
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