Russia's Unimilk completes share placement in favor of Unimilk Holdings
MOSCOW. July 22 (Interfax) - Russian dairy producer Unimilk has completed the placement of 12.5 million new shares in favor of shareholder Unimilk Holdings (Cyprus) Ltd, which owns an 89.25% stake in the company, Unimilk said in a statement.
Unimilk placed 10.73 billion rubles worth of shares at a price of 0.83 rubles per share.
The Federal Financial Markets Service (FFMS) registered the share issue in late December 2008. The additional shares will boost the company's charter capital by almost 50% to 389 million rubles from the current 263.97 million rubles.
The company told Interfax earlier that it was issuing the new shares to finalize a transaction with Capital International, which agreed to buy a roughly 10% stake in Unimilk in the spring, as well as to complete the consolidation of subsidiaries. Unimilk shareholders sold a stake in the company to the U.S. investment fund Capital International in March 2008 for roughly $175 million.
Unimilk currently unites 31 dairy enterprises in Russia and Ukraine. Unimilk includes Petmol in St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk's Milko, Samaralakto and Lipetsk-Moloko. The company has a 15% share of the Russian dairy market.
The company produces products under the brands Bio Balance, Prostokvashino, Letny Den, Petmol and Tema (baby food).
Sales grew 26% to 40.1 billion rubles in 2008 and 2.5% by volume. Gross profit rose 46.5% to 9.7 billion rubles.