Finish forestry equipment maker Ponsse completes sale of Russian subsidiary

MINSK. Sept 28 (Interfax) - Ponsse Plc, a Finnish manufacturer of forestry machinery, has completed the sale of 100% of its Russian subsidiary Ponsse LLC to Khabarovsk businessman Alexei Voronkevich's Bison LLC.

"Ponsse Plc has today completed the sale of all shares in Ponsse LLC, its subsidiary that provided Ponsse services in Russia and Belarus," the Finnish company said in a press release on September 18. The price of the deal was not disclosed.

"After the conditions of the transaction were met, Ponsse's business operations in Russia transferred to Bison LLC, a Russian company, and the trade received the approval of the local authorities," the company said.

All of the Russian subsidiary's facilities, including spare parts warehouses and maintenance vehicles, as well as its personnel have been transferred to Bison, Ponsse said.

"The impact of the business arrangement will be reported in the Q3 interim report to be published on October 24, 2023. The impact of the arrangement on the results of discontinued operations is expected to be negative, but it does not affect the company's performance guidance," Ponsse said.

Ponsse announced its intention to divest its operations in Russia on June 15, 2022. Ponsse's export and service operations in Russia have been suspended since March 2, 2022, when the company announced the suspension of all exports to Russia and Belarus, as well as the provision of spare parts and servicing by its Russian subsidiary.

Ponsse's Russian subsidiary earned a net profit of 416 million Russian rubles in 2021 on revenue of 12.4 billion rubles. Ponsse Plc said Russia and Belarus accounted for about 20% of its total sales.