A group of Russian investors led by Russian businessman Alexander Katunin, owner of Swiss-based metal trader Carbofer Group and former co-owner of Russian mining and steel producer Evraz Group, has acquired a controlling stake in one of Ukraine's leading transnational steel companies, Industrial Union of Donbass (ISD), the Interfax-Ukraine news agency has reported.
Quoting a statement from ISD, Interfax-Ukraine said the Russian-led group has bought 50 percent plus two shares in ISD, with the remaining 49.99 percent still belonging to Ukrainian shareholders Serhiy Taruta and Oleg Mkrtchan. Mr. Taruta is to stay as chairman of the board with Mr. Mkrtchan staying on as director general, the statement said.
The shares of each of the new owners in ISD do not exceed 25 percent, so the approval of the Ukrainian regulatory authorities is not required. The financial details of the deal have not been disclosed, but earlier this week the Financial Times newspaper valued it at up to $2 billion.
The investment company Troika Dialog acted as financial adviser in the deal, with Russian state-run bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) taking part in the financing, the ISD statement reads.
According to the company's statement, the agreement reached between ISD and the group of financial investors aims to combine efforts to develop the competitiveness of the metallurgical assets of the Ukrainian corporation in the global market, and excludes any political subtext.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, in 2008, with an annual production of more than 9.9 million mt of steel, ISD was ranked among the world's 30 largest steel producers. ISD's main production facilities include the Ukraine-based Alchevsk Iron and Steel Works (Alchevsk), Alchevsk Coking Plant, and Dneprovsky Iron and Steel Works named after F. Dzerzhinsky (DMKD), as well as the Hungary-based ISD-Dunaferr and Poland-based ISD-Huta Częstochowa.