PRESS: Russia’s Gazprombank, UVZ look for coal mine buyers

MOSCOW, Oct 30 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Gazprombank and railway equipment and tank maker Uralvagonzavod (UVZ) are looking for investors for coal miner Zarechnaya, business daily Kommersant reported Friday, citing a source with knowledge of the situation.

Kommersant said UVZ owns the mine since August 2013, when its affiliate signed a preliminary agreement with shareholder Viktor Nusenkis to acquire Zarechnaya and a machinery plant for several hundred thousand rubles and redemption of a 30 billion ruble debt. But the deal was not closed.

A 32% stake in Interconsulting, which owns Zarechnaya, was later acquired by several little-known businessmen, but the board of directors of Zarechnaya largely consists of UVZ executives, the sources told Kommersant. Gazprombank is the main creditor of Zarechnaya.

Nikolai Sosnovsky from UBS said that large coal producers – SDS-Ugol, Kuzbasrazrezugol or SUEK – could be interested in the asset if sold in exchange for only the debt repayment and most probably, if some of the plant’s debts are written off.

Zarechnaya owes 7 billion rubles to Gazprombank, as follows from its earlier financial reports. UVZ’s unit UVZ Logistic guaranteed 7.5 billion rubles of liabilities of Zarechnaya to Sberbank.

The capacity of the plant stands at 10 million tonnes but it produced only 6.6 million tonnes of coal in 2014. Sales revenue of Russian trading units of Zarechnaya stood at 7.3 billion rubles last year, down 35.8%.

Gazprombank and UVZ did not comment on the asset sale plans.

(64.1686 rubles – U.S. $1)

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