Russian Finance Ministry expects two state-owned companies to hold SPOs in 2026, 2025 could see one more privatization deal other than DOM.RF

CHOLPON-ATA. Aug 14 (Interfax) - The Russian Finance Ministry is currently expecting two SPOs by state-affiliated companies next year, with one more possible privatization deal this year besides the IPO already announced by state-owned DOM.RF, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev said.

"In a bureaucratic sense, we have not made much progress [in terms of approving a list of state-affiliated companies planning to sell their shares]. Work is ongoing, but in fact, we can now already see two companies from that list actively making preparations. I am optimistic that we will see two deals next year. That will be two good deals; these companies are already public and I don't actually see any obstacles to this [the placement of shares]," Moiseyev told journalists during his visit to Kyrgyzstan as part of a Russian delegation headed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

Moiseyev said once again that there were two different KPIs and that only IPOs were taken into account when assessing progress in increasing stock market capitalization to the target, while both IPOs and SPOs were taken into account in assessing progress on targets for state-owned companies placing shares on the market. With regard to the prospect of two deals of around 100 billion rubles being signed in 2026, he said that he considered this to be possible.

"In actual fact, I think that we will have two deals this year - one more besides DOM.RF. To be honest, I think that we will already be hearing about this in the near future," he said.

This deal will involve raising funds for the company and, unlike with DOM.RF, no payments are expected to be made into the budget. There have not yet been any decisions on the structure of the deals planned for 2026, but these may involve payments to the budget, Moiseyev said.

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov raised the issue of privatization once again this year and said that the ministry thought that it was the right time to discuss implementing "big privatization" in Russia. Ministry representatives said that between seven and 10 state-owned companies were on the privatization list.

Moiseyev told journalists in June that the Finance Ministry had already approved between three and four items from the list of large state-affiliated companies put forward for privatization.

To date, the ministry has only named one of the companies hoping to go public - DOM.RF. Siluanov said that the IPO candidates included state-owned companies in the energy, transport and finance industries, but did not disclose their names.