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player at the drilling and extraction services market, with upside potential in case new tougher Western sanctions would squeeze foreign contractors out.
Russian oil company Russneft of billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev doubled its IFRS net profit in 2018 to RUB14.8bn ($228mn), the company said on March 27. Russneft is one of Russia's six largest crude oil producers with assets in key extraction regions such as West and Central Siberia, Volga-Urals regions, as well as Azerbaijan. The company's Revenues increased by 38% to RUB178bn, with Ebitda up by 62% to RUB48.6bn, attributed to positive market conditions, changing extraction mix, and introduction of new technologies. Gutseriev, 58, is worth an estimated $6.7bn and raked in $500mn from the successful IPO of Russneft in November 2016, which is the source of most of his wealth. In 2018 reports suggested that Gutseriev seeks to replace oil trader Glencore as a shareholder in his oil company Russneft and then merge the company with another oil asset Neftisa. Gutseriev holds 47% stake, Glencore 33%, and freefloat in Russneft is at 20%. At the same time the deal was said to be complicated or even "technically unmanageable" as the two companies have different creditors and have their shares collateralised with loans from Sberbank and VTB state-controlled banks. Gutseriev has also been consolidating the retail assets within his Safmar Group, with recently announced mega-merger of M.Video and Eldorado electronics retailers, creating not just one of the biggest electronics retailers in Europe, but a top 10 global player.
The net profit of Russian oil company Tatneft almost doubled on the year to RUB197.523bn in 2018, as calculated under Russian Accounting Standards (RAS), the company said in a report on Wednesday. Revenue grew by almost 40% to 793.237bn, and gross profit jumped by about 50% to RUB318.712bn.
9.2.2 Automotive corporate news
Ford Sollers, a joint venture of Ford car major and car assembler Sollers, will stop the production of Ford-branded cars in Russia and downsize its staff, the company said on March 27. Ford will also stop importing its vehicles to Russia. By the end of June 2019 the JV will shut down two plants in Vsevolozhsk and Naberezhnye Chelni, as well as an engine plant in Elaburg and Tatarstan. The workers will be downsized on a "voluntary resignation program with payment of additional compensations," the company employing 3,700 people said as cited by Reuters. After the restructuring, Ford Sollers will only focus on assembling and selling its Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) model Ford Transit on the Elabrug plant and the sales of the model. Sollers will gain control in the JV with 51% stake. Vedomosti daily reminds that Ford was the first foreign car major that has built a full-cycle car production chain in Russia with the launch of Ford Focus plant in Vsevolozhsk in 2002. Reportedly, in 2014-2016 Ford Sollers was loss making and could not cope with the market plunge. After nearly five years of contraction, the sale of new cars grew for the second year in a row in 2018. In 2017, the new car market grew by 12%, and in 2018 by 13% to 1.8mn vehicles. However, latest February sales numbers questioned the sustainability of the positive trend on the car market. In the meantime, some foreign companies managed to sit the market decline out. Russia's largest carmaker Avtovaz and Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi plan to strike a RUB70bn ($1.1bn) investment deal for 10 years in Russia, the companies said in the end of 2018. Renault-Nissan is the largest shareholder in Avtovaz, together with Russian state technology agency Rostec. Since
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