Sberbank will participate in the group’s negotiations with Alfa Bank

Sberbank of Russia intends to join the negotiations between the GAZ group and Alfa Bank in order to find a compromise in restructuring the automaker’s debt. Alfa Bank is the only creditor with which GAZ cannot reach an agreement, and this, according to the group, prevents it from receiving 20 billion rubles. state guarantees. In turn, Alfa Bank is ready to reconsider the terms of lending to GAZ only on the condition that we are talking about the entire Russian Machines company with a debt of 8 billion rubles, of which GAZ accounts for half. Experts note that GAZ is a hostage to the proceedings between Alfa Bank and Basel and advise the automaker to “just work” pending their final decisions regarding the restructuring of the debts of the entire holding.

Chairman of the Board of Sberbank German Gref spoke yesterday about the intention of the management of Sberbank to meet with representatives of Alfa Bank regarding the settlement of the debt of the GAZ group. According to him, negotiations could take place in the near future. “The government is ready to provide guarantees, and Sberbank is responsible for restructuring the loans of the GAZ group, there is a special program for this (Sberbank became the organizer of the restructuring of GAZ’s debt in early August - Kommersant),” explained Mr. Gref. Alfa Bank is the only one of GAZ’s 22 creditor banks that has not agreed to reconsider the terms of its lending. Alfa Bank accounts for 3.3 billion rubles, or 8% of GAZ's debt of 39 billion rubles, the terms of the restructuring of which were approved by creditors in July. We are talking about prolongation of loans for five years with a deferment of payment of the principal amount for two years and interest for six months. If all GAZ creditors sign the restructuring agreement, they will receive government guarantees for 19.7 billion rubles, and the remainder of the loans will be secured by the company’s collateral, including 15% of the treasury shares of GAZ OJSC.

The GAZ Group was created in 2005 on the basis of the production assets of OJSC Ruspromavto, uniting 18 automobile manufacturing enterprises in ten regions of Russia. It is controlled by OJSC Russian Machines of Oleg Deripaska's Basic Element holding company. Revenue in 2008 - 143.1 billion rubles. (152.8 billion rubles in 2007), net loss - 5.2 billion rubles. (profit - 7.2 billion rubles), EBITDA - 6 billion rubles. (RUB 16.1 billion).

Alfa Bank itself says that it agrees to sign documents on the restructuring of the debts of all companies of the Basic Element holding company related to the activities of the GAZ group. “We include such companies not only as legal entities of the GAZ group itself, for example LLC GAZ Automobile Plant, LLC Trucks - GAZ Group, OJSC Avtodizel, OJSC Automobile Plant Ural, but also OJSC Russian cars" - the main owner of this company. The total debt of these companies is about 8 billion rubles. We consider Russian Machines to be part of GAZ, since it is their top managers who represent the interests of the group in negotiations with us,” explains Kommersant’s source in Alfa Bank. Earlier, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Alfa Bank Vladimir Tatarchuk said that the signing of an agreement on restructuring the debt of the GAZ group “by the Basel group (the parent company of Russian Machines - Kommersant) was due to the agreement on the terms of debt restructuring and other enterprises of the holding ", on which no agreement was reached. At the same time, Alfa Bank does not consider the bankruptcy of GAZ possible due to its “high social significance.”

Experts do not exclude that negotiations between Sberbank and Alfa Bank may continue in the form of a certain exchange of assets between banks. “Alfa Bank may assign GAZ’s debt to Sberbank, or Sberbank may arrange a new loan for the group,” suggests Sevastyan Kozitsyn, an analyst at Brokercreditservice. According to Aton Investment Company analyst Mikhail Pak, in this situation the GAZ Group is a hostage to the situation, since Alfa Bank’s tough position is explained by its desire to obtain a number of the holding’s assets as a result of proceedings with Basel. “GAZ just needs to work further and continue to put pressure on Alfa Bank through state banks, since it is difficult to predict how all this will end, and even more so when,” concludes Troika Dialog analyst Mikhail Ganelin.

Maria Kuznetsova

GAZ will not be left in debt