PhosAgro to spend up to 6.3 bln rubles on PhosAgro-Cherepovets buyout
MOSCOW. Feb 4 (Interfax) - The management board at PhosAgro has sanctioned a voluntary offer to minority shareholders in the fertilizer producer's subsidiary, PhosAgro-Cherepovets, to buy them out for 40.9 rubles a share, PhosAgro said in a statement.
The company received a banking guarantee of up to 10.1 billion rubles from VTB (MOEX VTBR) for the buyout.
PhosAgro currently owns 87.61% of the shares in PhosAgro-Cherepovets, which has 1,248,678,417 issued shares, par value 1.1 rubles each.
PhosAgro could spend around 6.3 billion rubles ($180 million) consolidating 100% of the subsidiary.
PhosAgro said the guarantee covered the acquisition of "all shares owned by third parties, including subsidiaries of PhosAgro. As previously, the group plans to spend just over $200 million buying the shares of minority shareholders," the company said.
PhosAgro plans to finish consolidating PhosAgro-Cherepovets in the third quarter of 2014.
"This decision marks a further step forward in our strategy of consolidating ownership of our production facilities. This should increase profit and dividends attributable to shareholders of PhosAgro, and will simplify our legal structure, making it more understandable and simpler for our investors," the PhosAgro press release quoted CEO Andrei Guryev as saying.
PhosAgro-Cherepovets was set up in 2012 as the result of a merger between OJSC AmmoPhos and Cherepovets Azot. The enterprise is Europe's biggest producer of fertilizers containing phosphorus, phosphoric and sulfuric acid, and one of Russia's biggest producers of NPK-fertilizers, ammonia and ammonium nitrate.