PRESS: Russian tycoon Shchukin gets controlling stake in Zarechnaya

MOSCOW, Aug 29 (PRIME) -- Russian businessman Alexander Shchukin, a co-owner of holding Sibuglemet, has received controlling stakes in coal company Zarechnaya and the Yurginsky machinery plant, business daily Kommersant reported on Monday, citing a statement by Governor of the Kemerovo Region Aman Tuleyev.

Zarechnaya was established by Ukrainian businessman Viktor Nusenkis. The assets comprise four mines, an ore dressing plant, a trading unit, and a 50% stake in port terminal Baltic Coal Terminal in Latvia. The output was 8.5 million tonnes of coal and sales 6.3 million tonnes of coal in 2015.

Former chief prosecutor of Ukraine Gennady Vasilyev claimed rights for Zarechnaya and the Yurginsky plant as a co-owner in 2012 and litigated for the assets in Cyprus and Russia. After that, the claiming rights passed to A1, part of Alfa-Group.

Russian logistic company UVZ-Logistic said that it bought the assets in 2013. The Yurginsky plant became a part of UVZ in 2014.

UVZ and the largest creditor of the coal company Gazprombank started to seek for buyers in 2015 but several deals discussed at the time fell through because the potential investors, Kuzbassrazrezugol and holding Siberian Business Union, known in Russia as Sibirsky Delovoi Soyuz, were worried by the debt of Zarechnaya, amounting to several tens of billions of rubles, and management faults which made the company loss-making.

(64.7380 rubles – U.S. $1)

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