FAS allows Italy's Pirelli to acquire 100% stake in Amtel-Russian Tyres
MOSCOW. Oct 4 (Interfax) - Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has permitted Italian company Pirelli Tyre to take operational control of LLC Amtel-Russian Tyres, the agency said on Monday.
The FAS decision was put forth on September 21.
In addition, an application from LLC E-volution Tyre to acquire 100% in LLC Amtel-Russian Tyres was approved. According to the SPARK database, the sole owner in E-volution Tyre is LLC Pirelli Tyre Russia.
Interfax has so far been unable to uncover the assets included in Amtel-Russian Tyres.
It was earlier reported that Sibur plans to transfer its tire assets, valued at 222 million euro, to a joint venture formed by Pirelli and state corporation Russian Technologies. The JV Kirov Tyre Plant should receive these assets by November.
A source close to the deal told Interfax that the Pirelli Tyre and E-volution Tyre transactions with LLC Amtel-Russian Tyres are part of the transfer of Sibur assets to the joint venture between Pirelli and Russian Technologies. He said that Amtel-Russian Tyres does not include production assets. He also did not rule out that in future Russian Technologies might acquire a stake in E-volution Tyre.
It was reported earlier that in future, in addition to Kirov Tyre Plant, the joint venture might acquire other assets with which its combined production will reach 11 million tires per year by 2014. It was also reported that under a letter of intent signed in November 2010 the parties will continue the process of selecting Sibur tire assets to be transferred to another joint venture between Pirelli and Russian Technologies.
The letter of intent envisioned that Pirelli would form two joint ventures with Russian Technologies on the basis of Sibur-Russian Tyres. The first venture was to manufacture premium tires, and Sibur was to retain a stake of 10%. The remaining business was to be split equally between Russian Technologies and Pirelli. The second venture was to focus on production of medium-class tires. Sibur was to hand over 40.1% of Sibur-Russian Tyres to the venture in exchange for a 49.9% stake, Russian Technologies was to get 40.1% and Pirelli was supposed to receive 10%.
Sibur-Russian Tyres includes five plants: Yaroslavl Tyre Plant, Omskshina , Voltyre-Prom, Uralshina and the joint venture Matador-Omskshina with Continental AG. In addition, the holding includes Sibur-Volzhsky, which specializes in production of synthetic tire cord.
Kirov Tyre Plant was formed as a result of the bankruptcy of Amtel-Povolzhye Tyre Complex, which handed over assets and property rights equivalent to the Kirov plant's charter capital (354.089 million rubles). Some of the transferred assets have been pledged as collateral to Tyre Invest and Sibur-Russian Tyres.
In August, LLC Voronezh Tyre Plant, which was formed with the assets of Amtel-Chernozeme Tyre Complex JSC, acquired 100% of Kirov Tyre Plant.
Sibur in mid-2010 reached an agreement with A1, the investment division of Alfa Group, to cede claims against the Amtel group, giving Sibur control of nearly 90% of Amtel's total debt, as well as control in every legal entity that was part of the Amtel group.