Page 8 - bne magazine March 2017 issue

8 I The Month That Was bne March 2017
Business
Central Europe
The Slovak coalition government agreed to set up a state energy hold- ing to increase its influence on the assets it holds in the sector. The government's move is an attempt to end a row this year over a hike in regulated energy prices.
Hungary will face a European Com- mission probe into its alleged failure to hold an open tender for a high- speed rail link between Budapest and Belgrade in Serbia. Chinese companies have promised to build the stretch for about €1.5bn.
Polish state-owned coalmining group PGG will need more than PLN3bn (€696mn) to absorb peer KHW, the energy minister said. The estimated cost will raise concern amongst sharehold- ers of Polish state-controlled companies. The creation of PGG, established via a restructuring of collapsing state former holding Kompania Weglowa last year, saw listed state-controlled utilities and banks pushed into investing PLN3.5bn.
Lithuania’s ban on the Russian television RTR Planeta, imposed in November, was in line with EU law, the European Commission decided. Lithu- ania banned RTR Planeta’s broadcasts
– carried out via a company registered in Sweden – on the grounds that the chan- nel incited hatred.
Southeast Europe
A tender was launched for a 25-year concession to operate Belgrade air- port, Serbia’s largest, which the govern- ment hopes will become the main airport hub for the Western Balkans region.
A Turkish-South Korean consortium won the tender to construct the planned bridge over the Dardanelles, which will be the world’s longest suspen- sion bridge. The winning consortium, made up of South Korea’s Daelim and SK as well as local companies Limak and Yapi
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Merkezi, placed the best financial offer, amounting to TRY10.35bn (€2.51bn) worth of investment value plus 16 years and two months of operations, including the construction process.
An attempt to partly privatise Serbian pharmaceutical company Galenika failed. The ministry of economy was
in talks with a Russian-UK consortium on a partnership deal that would have included the sale of a 25% stake in state- owned Galenika.
Eastern Europe
Russia’s iconic toy company Detsky Mir (Children’s World) closed the country's second-largest IPO in three years, sell- ing one third of its shares for RUB21.1bn (€333mn) on Russia’s Moscow Exchange. The IPO values the company, which specialises in toys and children’s goods, at almost €1bn, making it the biggest IPO in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region so far this year.
Russian Helicopters finalised the sale of 12% of its shares to a consortium of international investors assembled by the Russian Direct Investment Fund. The stake was acquired from state technol- ogy corporation Rostec, with the buyers including “leading Middle Eastern” investors. The company was valued at $2.35bn in the deal.
ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, the biggest mining and metallurgical plant in Ukraine controlled by global steel and mining giant ArcelorMittal, will invest $400mn in the development of the plant in 2017.
Russia's Onexim Group, owned by tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov, sold 3.32% of its 17.02% stake in aluminium pro- ducer UC Rusal for $240mn. Demand was driven due to the rapid growth in Rusal’s share price after aluminium prices increased 24% since early 2016.
Creditor banks and holders of Euro- bonds of Ukraine's Metinvest mining and steel group in February approved a restructuring scheme for its liabilities on the notes.
Eurasia
European steel trade group Euro-
fer warned of a growing threat to European steel makers after statistics showed that Iranian steel exports to Europe soared by 8 times in the 2013 to 2016 period to just over 1mn tonnes per year. Tehran dismissed claims of steel product dumping on EU markets.
Masjid Soleyman Petrochemical Industries Co struck a deal with China's Wuhan Petrochemicals for a $3.6bn fertiliser complex in southwest Iran’s Khuzestan province. Meanwhile, unnamed Chinese firms reportedly secured a $2.5bn letter of credit for a methanol complex in Iran, the director of Genaveh Dashtestan Petrochemical Co said.
Tajikistan’s heavily indebted alu- minium producer Talco took over the remaining Tajik assets of Russian fer- tiliser maker Rusal. The deal ends an eight-year row between Tajikistan and Rusal, which has been trying to collect on a Swiss arbitration court award of $275mn after a ruling that Talco violat- ed a 2003 barter agreement with Rusal’s alumina supplier Hamer Investing.
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