Putin permits sale of Schneider Electric's Samara plant to Russian investor - instruction

MOSCOW. Oct 17 (Interfax) - JSC Acron Industry has received permission to acquire 22.5 million shares of Samara-based JSC SESH Holding owned by Schneider Electric Industries SAS, according to a presidential resolution published on Monday.

JSC SESH Holding is the management company of the Electroshield Group - TM Samara plant. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the authorized capital of JSC SESH Holding is divided into 37.5 million shares, and Schneider Electric had been a 100% shareholder since June 2020.

The Electroshield plant itself (Russia's largest manufacturer of 0.4-220 kV electrical equipment) has been unprofitable since 2014. In 2021, its net loss to RAS was 1.25 billion rubles, and its revenue was 12.5 billion rubles.

The buyer, Akron Industry, is registered in Togliatti. The owners of the company have not been disclosed. The head of the company is Pavel Morozov. He is also the general director of Akron Holding (the leader in ferrous and nonferrous metal scrap processing in Russia and CIS, according to the group's website). The management company of Akron Holding is also registered in Togliatti, its sole owner is Cyprus-based Rusmetal Investments Limited.

In early July, Schneider Electric signed a binding agreement to sell assets in Russia to local management.

Schneider Electric assets in Russia, in particular, included the ElectroMonoblok plant in the Leningrad Region (manufacturing low-voltage automatic devices, gas-insulated monobloc units, relay protection devices), the Mekhanotronika plant (St. Petersburg) and Potential plant (Kozmodemyansk, Mari El). The company also operated in the innovation center in Innopolis and the innovation laboratory in Skolkovo. Now these assets are listed among those managed by System Electric.

According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, System Electric was registered on June 9. The head and co-owner of System Electric is Alexei Kashayev, who also heads Schneider Electric. Kashaev owns 51% in the company, with 9.8% each held by Elena Polozkova, Armen Badalov, Dmitry Kurpekov, Nikolai Ladygin and Roman Shmakov.