Acron discussing delisting of Dorogobuzh, not planning sharp movements with shares
MOSCOW. Dec 12 (Interfax) - Acron is discussing the delisting of the shares of its subsidiary, PJSC Dorogobuzh from the Moscow Exchange , Acron board chairman Alexander Popov said during an interview with Interfax.
"Now there remain about 5% of the company's shares in free float, and we saw attempts to manipulate their value. Therefore, we are considering the option of delisting the shares of Dorogobuzh from the Moscow Exchange in order to avoid such things," he said.
Acron considers the current capitalization of the company fair and is not planning to make any sharp movements with its shares, although it is not ruling out an SPO after the recovery of prices for potash.
"Based on the financial indicators that we have achieved today, it can be said that the company is valued fairly, more or less, because prices now are depressed. But we see that in the near future there will be an upturn. Nitrogen fertilizer prices have already bounced back from their low and have risen seriously. To the extent they increase in future, the company's profitability and, of course, its capitalization, will increase. If prices rise by even 20%, at some point an SPO can be considered. But perhaps we will never get to that at all. In recent times many entrepreneurs have cooled on going public; some have even carried out a complete buyback, become privately owned. But we will not take any abrupt actions with Acron shares on the market, because we consider that the market views us fairly," Popov said.
Acron's current market capitalization on the London Stock Exchange is $2.38 billion. The company posted an IFRS net loss of 16.7 billion rubles in 2015. EBITDA totaled 42.4 billion rubles.
Acron Holding includes PJSC Acron (Veliky Novgorod) and PJSC Dorogobuzh (Smolensk region). The group also owns about 20% of Polish fertilizer producer Grupa Azoty. The company's main beneficiary is Vyacheslav Kantor. Free float amounts to 13%.