Page 8 - bne_Magazine_July_2017

8 I The Month That Was bne July 2017
Business
Central Europe
Volkswagen Slovakia will hand over
a 14.1% pay rise to workers at its plant in Bratislava to end a strike. Tensions have grown in labour relations over the last year or more across Central Europe as the region faces a worsening labour shortage.
Czech-based energy holding EPH expanded its UK asset portfolio by agreeing to buy two combined cycle gas turbine power stations from UK utility Centrica for £318mn. EPH will buy the Langage and South Humber Bank CCGT power stations, which have a combined capacity of 2.3GW.
The first ever shipment of LNG from the US to CEE arrived in Poland on June 7. The cargo, which was loaded via the Sabine Pass terminal operated by Cheniere Energy, remains for the moment a one-off purchase on the spot market.
Eastern Europe
Key assets of Russia’s multi-industry investment conglomerate AFK Sistema have been arrested under a €2.5bn lawsuit pursued by state- controlled oil giant Rosneft in
the court of the Russian republic of Bashkortostan. Sistema’s anchor asset Bashneft was effectively renationalised in 2014 by a court order, with the majority stake in the oil company being subsequently acquired by Rosneft in October 2016. Now Rosneft claims that Sistema extorted RUB170.6bn (€2.57bn) from Bashneft during its ownership.
Arbitrators in Sweden have rejected multi-billion ‘take-or-pay’ claims
by Russian gas monopoly Gazprom against Ukrainian state gas giant Naftogaz, signalling at least a partial victory for Kyiv in its longstanding energy dispute with Moscow.
Eurasia
French oil major Total expects to sign a contract with Iran to develop part of the world’s biggest natural gas field. The deal on the Iranian part of the South Pars field – part of a giant gas reservoir which is shared with Qatar in the Persian Gulf – is expected to have an initial investment value of $1bn and would represent the Islamic Republic’s first investment by an international oil company since nuclear sanctions were dropped at the start of last year.
France’s Carrefour is closing its Almaty hypermarket in Kazakhstan just 15 months after opening it.
It blames poor market conditions. Carrefour was the first truly global retail chain to arrive in Kazakhstan. There was even a televised visit
of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to the store.
Southeast Europe
Croatia’s Agrokor has secured €480mn worth of fresh financing from bondholders led by Knighthead Capital Management and domestic banks. Sberbank, the struggling retail and
food giant’s largest creditor, previously attempted to block the new loan deal by filing a lawsuit with a Zagreb court but this was rejected.
South Africa’s NEPI bought the mixed use Serdika development in Bulgaria for €207.4mn. The fund acquired the Serdika Center shopping mall and Serdika Office office building in Sofia from Austrian and German investors.
The biggest pharmacy chain in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Dr. Max, is entering the fast growing Romanian market by acquiring Arta pharmacy chain and a drugs distributor.
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