The company is being claimed by the Russian Railways structure

As Kommersant has learned, the Second Freight Company, owned by OJSC Russian Railways, wants to purchase the railway operator Transgarant from the FESCO group of Sergei Generalov. Thus, the monopoly, contrary to the original plans for reform of the industry, not only does not reduce, but increases the fleet of cars. A formal justification for this was found last year - problems with the efficiency of the railways in the context of the massive transfer of cars into the hands of private operators.

Two Kommersant sources in the railway transportation market said that OJSC Second Freight Company (VGK) has submitted an application to purchase Transgarant. This information was confirmed by the top manager of VGK itself - VTB Capital, which is the official agent of the FESCO group for the sale of the asset and completed accepting preliminary applications last week. These are non-binding offers in which bidders have indicated an indicative price.

Kommersant's sources do not know how much VGK offered. Other bidders told Kommersant that Transgarant is worth about $700 million, taking into account a debt of $350 million. According to Kommersant's sources, Neftetransservice also submitted bids; "Sovfracht"; "Spetsenergotrans"; "Eurosib"; Brunswick Rail; Globaltrans; Rail Garant; group "Summa" and En+ Group. Kommersant's sources say that a short list of applicants may be formed in April, from which FESCO will select the winner in May. FESCO plans to close the deal itself by the end of the first half of 2012.

"Transgarant" includes LLC "Firm "Transgarant""; "Transgarant Ukraine"; "Transgarant Vostok"; "Tektrans"; "Metiztrans". There are 16.8 thousand cars in the fleet, half of which are gondola cars, the rest are specialized cars (platforms, cement tankers, covered cars, etc.). Revenue according to IFRS for the first half of 2011 was 4 billion rubles, net profit was 1.1 billion rubles. The volume of transportation in 2011 was 25 million tons. Transgarant is offered for sale without container assets.

$700 million

stands "Transgarant", which VGK claims

Kommersant's source at VGK clarifies that "final participation in the transaction at the stage of issuing mandatory offers must be approved by the company's board of directors, but so far this issue has not yet been put on the agenda." JSC Russian Railways does not comment on VGK’s plans for Transgarant.

In December 2011, the monopoly, as part of the industry reform, which involved the removal of the carriage fleet from JSC Russian Railways, sold the largest freight company on the market for $4 billion. But even before the auction, the management of the monopoly began talking about the need to increase, rather than reduce, its fleet of cars. As a result, VGK, which was initially supposed to become an independent railway operator, leased 104 thousand of its 180 thousand cars to OJSC Russian Railways. The monopoly also announced plans to rent private carriages. But the rates she offered turned out to be lower than the market average and attracted almost no one.

At the same time, Russian Railways continues to sell off its specialized fleet of cars, and the same FESCO group is showing interest in them. It already owns about 20% of the shares of TransContainer (51% from JSC Russian Railways) and is waiting for a decision on the sale of the remaining stake by the monopoly. But the government has not yet decided which share in TransContainer should be sold. The Ministry of Economy insists on 50%, JSC Russian Railways wants to retain a blocking stake.

Andrey Rozhkov from IFC Metropol does not believe that the Transgarant and TransContainer transactions are interrelated. The analyst explains VGK's application by the fact that, at the expense of Transgarant, the company will replenish the fleet faster than waiting for the order to be fulfilled at car-building enterprises. At the same time, Andrei Rozhkov considers it not very right to spend the funds of the Russian Railways group on acquisitions of private operator companies in conditions when the monopoly constantly talks about problems with modernizing the railway infrastructure and the lack of money to implement its own investment program.

Alexander Panchenko

"Transgarant" can go to the state