East Capital fund halves stake in Far Eastern Shipping Company
MOSCOW. Jan 15 (Interfax) - Sweden's East Capital Fund reduced its stake in the parent company of the FESCO Transportation Group - OJSC Far Eastern Shipping Company - from 9.22% to 4.61% on December 28, FESCO said in a statement.
In total, over 136,000 FESCO shares were sold. At the close of trade on December 28, the share price was 9.45 rubles, putting the stake's value at 1.286 billion rubles.
East Capital acquired 9.8% of Far Eastern Shipping Company's shares in 2007, without disclosing the cost of the transaction.
In mid-December, Summa Group and GHP-Group finished jointly buying a controlling stake in Far Eastern Shipping Company, for the purposes of which they took out an $800-million syndicated loan. Summa Group President Alexander Vinokurov previously said that the company would control around 70% of Far Eastern Shipping Company after the transaction finished.
Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Stockholm, East Capital specializes in working on the financial markets of Eastern Europe. At the moment, the company manages around 3 billion euro worth of assets, around $1.5 billion of which are investments in Russia.
FESCO Transportation Group is an intermodal operator that combines sea, rail and road transportation, and stevedore services at its own terminals at ports in Russia and other CIS countries. The group owns 47 ships and 19,000 freight cars. Its infrastructure facilities make it capable of handling 450,000 TEU of containers, 5 million tonnes of liquid cargo and 100,000 units of wheeled machinery a year. In the first half of 2012, FESCO's consolidated revenue totaled $583 million.