Purchase of car dealer Rolf from Russian govt cost 34.8 bln rubles

MOSCOW. Dec 27 (Interfax) - The company of International Boxing Association president Umar Kremlev that bought Rolf Group from the Federal Property Agency in August paid 34.8 billion rubles for the leading Russian automobile dealer, the latter reported in its interim consolidated financial statement.

The last financial statement published by the dealer, for the first nine months of 2024, describes the group's new ownership structure, where the parent company is JSC PromAgroLogistics (PAL).

A company called JSC Automobile Technologies was founded in May 2024 and PAL became its parent company in August with a stake of 99%, the preamble to the report said. "In August 2024, JSC Automobile Technologies acquired JSC Rolf, Rolf Motors LLC, Rolf Estate St. Petersburg LLC and Rolf Tech LLC from the Federal Property Agency (Rosimuschestvo)," it said.

The deal to purchase Rolf was closed on August 31 and its price was 34.798 billion rubles, the report said.

In order to determine the group's fair price, its inventories were valued at 33.7 billion rubles, fixed assets were valued at 16.2 billion rubles, trade and other receivables at 11 billion rubles and cash and equivalents at 3 billion rubles. The valuation of the dealer's assets was adjusted downward by loan and credit obligations totalling 22 billion rubles, trade and other payables of 8.5 billion rubles and lease obligations in the amount of 2 billion rubles.

The price disclosed in the financial statement falls within the range that Rolf's new CEO, Roman Antonov gave in November. "The deal was monetary, at market value. There was a Rosimuschestvo valuation according to which we acquired the company. The deal was not free of charge, we paid for it. In the range of 30 billion-40 billion rubles, like analysts said," Antonov, a business partner of Kremlev, Rolf's ultimate beneficiary, told reporters at the time.

Rolf's assets were put under the temporary management of the Federal Property Agency at the end of 2023 by order of President Vladimir Putin. Several years earlier, in 2019, criminal investigations were launched against senior Rolf executives, including company founder Sergei Petrov, who had already moved to Austria by then.

After the publication of the presidential order a year ago, Russia's Prosecutor General's Office filed and won a lawsuit in a St. Petersburg Court to nationalize the dealer. The grounds for this, as cited by the court in its ruling, were that Petrov headed the company while simultaneously serving as a member of Russia's State Duma, to which he was elected in 2007-2016.

Antonov was appointed CEO of Rolf in the spring of 2024. In early September, Rolf released a statement saying that its new owner was Kremlev, a "strategic investor [who] will enable the company to preserve its unique corporate culture and expand the range of the company's activities, focusing on increasing efficiency and attracting new partners and customers."

After Rolf was purchased from the Federal Property Agency, the president issued a new order removing the dealer from state ownership.

Rolf, Russia's largest car dealer by revenue has a portfolio of more than 30 brands and 20 dealerships and 78 showrooms in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as a recently opened franchise center in Krasnodar. The company's updated strategy calls for aggressive expansion in Russia's regions.

Rolf's revenue grew by 40% to 324 billion rubles in 2023, as automobile sales rose 31.4% to about 131,000 vehicles. This included 102,300 used cars and 28,700 new ones, respectively 37.8% and 13% more than a year earlier.