Henkel's Russian business to be bought by shareholders of Pharmstandard, Kismet Capital - paper

MOSCOW. March 28 (Interfax) - The Russian plants of German chemical and consumer goods company Henkel might be acquired by a consortium of investors that includes the shareholders of drug maker Pharmstandard, Ivan Tavrin's Kismet Capital and one of the founders of Elbrus Capital, business daily Vedomosti reported on Tuesday, citing sources said.

Henkel decided to exit its Russian business last April and at the beginning of this month the company said it would do so by the end of the first quarter. Henkel spun off its Russian business at the end of December 2022, and it began to operate independently under the name Lab Industries as of January 1.

Vedomosti reported a spokesman for Henkel as saying that the company is in the final stage of selling its Russian assets.

The paper's sources said the shareholders of Pharmstandard, which is owned by Viktor Kharitonin and Yegor Kulkov, will become the majority owners of Henkel's Russian plants.

The parties have already received permission from a government commission to make the deal, the sources said. The sales agreement will include a provision for the possible repurchase of the plants, the sources said.

The plants will continue to manufacture products under Henkel brands after the sale, the sources said. They did not name the price of the sale.

The press service of the Russian government, Pharmstandard, Kismet Capital and Elbrus Capital did not respond to questions, Vedomosti said.

Henkel, which has been working in Russia since 1991, owned plants in Perm, Saratov Region (Engels), Leningrad Region (Tosno), Stavropol Territory, Ulyanovsk, Novosibirsk and Chelyabinsk region and two in the Moscow area, in Noginsk and Kolomna, as of the end of 2022.

The Russian business generated about $106 billion annually for the German group, the chairman of Henkel's shareholder committee and supervisory board, Simone Bagel-Trah said in December. The company said in its report for 2022 that the write-off of the Russian assets cost it about 1.1% of global sales.

The company valued the assets offered for sale - the plants in Russia plus one in Belarus - at 673 million euros.

Henkel Rus LLC closed 2021 with net profit down to 7.48 billion rubles from 7.84 billion rubles a year earlier on revenue up 13.1% to 95.14 billion rubles to Russian Accounting Standards, data from the SPARK-Interfax showed.