Russia's Polad holding acquires automotive component factories of Spain's Gestamp in Togliatti

MOSCOW. Jan 31 (Interfax) - JSC Polad, one of Russia's largest automotive component holdings, has acquired factories of the Spanish company Gestamp, including a plant for manufacturing metal automotive components, Gestamp Togliatti LLC, and Edscha Togliatti LLC, a hinge systems plant controlled by Gestamp's Edscha division in Germany, according to materials from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.

The deals were closed by January 29.

JSC Polad (Togliatti) is one of the largest automotive component holdings in Russia, producing more than 700 types of components made from metal, plastic and PVC materials. The company is involved in tooling design and has its own tool production. Polad has been operating since the early 1990s, and its clients include many Russian automakers, including the Togliatti-based Avtovaz .

Gestamp's Togliatti-based enterprises and its subsidiary Edscha have been operating since 2011 and have also served as suppliers to Avtovaz.

According to its financial statements, the most successful year for Gestamp Togliatti LLC was the pre-crisis 2019, when the company's revenue exceeded 1.5 billion rubles and its net profit amounted to 291 million rubles. The plant received 476 million rubles in revenue in 2023 compared to 277 million in 2022, as well as a profit of over 417 million rubles, reversing the previous year's loss. Edscha Togliatti LLC achieved its highest financial results in 2023, with revenue reaching 689 million rubles, up 86%, and net profit of 108 million rubles, compared to a loss of 7 million rubles in 2022.

In addition to these two plants, Gestamp also had component factories in Vsevolozhsk in the Leningrad region and in Kaluga, which were launched in 2009-2010 with the participation of Severstal - Gestamp Severstal Vsevolozhsk LLC and Gestamp Severstal Kaluga LLC. These plants supplied metal products to automakers operating in the respective regions, including the St. Petersburg and regional GM, Hyundai-Kia, Nissan, Toyota and Ford, as well as the Kaluga-based Volkswagen and PSA, and Moscow's Renault factory (now Moskvich). The owner of these sites is now the Spanish company Todlem SL, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.

The financial results of the Vsevolozhsk and Kaluga plants collapsed with the departure of foreign automakers from Russia. The revenue of the Kaluga plant in the pre-crisis 2019 was close to 10 billion rubles, but by 2021 following the pandemic it dropped to 7.5 billion rubles, and in 2023 it was only around 110 million rubles. The turnover of the Vsevolozhsk plant in 2019 and 2021 amounted to 1 billion rubles and 709 million rubles, respectively, and in 2023 it was zero, according to the report. The Kaluga plant posted a net loss of 508.5 million rubles in 2020 and 1.4 billion rubles in 2022, while the Vsevolozhsk plant has been operating at a loss for the last few years.

Gestamp's total investment in Russia exceeded 250 million euros, the company's Russian division said at the end of 2019.

As reported, a company closely related to Russia's Polad, JSC Avtolist, acquired another Avtovaz supplier of metal parts in the summer of last year - the former French Defta plant (Deska LLC, Togliatti), which produced components for Lada Largus and Renault models. The owners of Avtolist remain undisclosed, and the company's address matches that of Polad.