Nokian Tyres looking to sell Russian plant, possibly to Tatneft affiliates - paper

ST. PETERSBURG. Aug 29 (Interfax) - Finland's Nokian Tyres is looking for a buyer for its tire plant in the Vsevolozhsky district of Leningrad Region, national daily Kommersant reported on Monday, citing sources.

There are currently several potential buyers, including companies close to oil company Tatneft and the owner of Aeon Corporation, Roman Trotsenko. Tatneft recently completed the sale of its tire business in Russia to Tatneftekhiminvest Holding.

Aeon Corporation includes one of Russia's largest airport groups, Novaport with 20 regional airports, river transport businesses and nitrogen fertilizer producer SDS-Azot.

Nokian Tyres is accepting binding offers for the Russian tire plant until the beginning of September.

Tatneft's press service said that it "does not comment on rumors," while Trotsenko did not respond to questions, Kommersant said.

Nokian Tyres announced in June that it planned to leave Russia due to the situation in Ukraine. As part of this process, the company wanted to write off Russian assets in the amount of about 300 million euros in the second quarter of 2022. Taking the impairments into account, the value of Nokian Tyres' net assets in Russia and Belarus totalled about 400 million euros on May 31, 2022, the company said.

Nokian manufactures and sells tires for cars, offroad vehicles, commercial vehicles, trucks and industrial equipment. The group also includes the Vianor chain of tire centers. The company opened its Russian plant in September 2005. It has 14 production lines with capacity to produce 17 million tires per year. In 2021, about 80% of the company's car tires were made in Russia, and the Russia and Asia business division generated about 20% of Nokian Tyres' net sales.