Sibur to buy Amtel debt

ERJ staff report (DS)

Moscow -- In a major restructuring of the Russian tyre sector, Sibur is to buy the debt of the Amtel group from a banking consortium led by Alfa Bank. Sibur issued a press release saying it expects to close the deal by the end of this month.

Sibur said that when the deal goes through, "Sibur shall become the principal lender of the "Amtel" Group and such capacity start to participate more actively in optimisation of financial and economic position of "Amtel" companies."

A Sibur spokesman said Sibur now controls over 85 percent of Amtel's debt. This does not mean it owns 85 percent of shares in Amtel, but in the end, the former main debtor, Alfa Bank, has said it will quit Amtel.

Amtel's assets comprise two and a half car tyre plants -- Kirov and one old plant in Voronezh with a second partially-built plant adjacent to the Voronezh plant. Also, Amtel owns the Avto tyre distribution chain.

Since Amtel is under the bankruptcy procedure, Kirov is already under external management, all the rest are under Observation. Formally, therefore, factories of Amtel are under administration of external managers appointed by an Arbitration Court. As the main creditor, Sibur can control these external managers.

The Sibur spokesman said, "We are interested in keeping safe Amtel's factories, and Amtel's brand." He continued, "We need additional production facilities for passenger car tyres - and this deal is a great opportunity for us."

It is expected, therefore, that Sibur's subsidiary, Sibur Russian Tyres, will gain operational control of all the Amtel assets in Russia.Amtel sold the Vredestein subsidiary a year ago to Apollo for euro 36.1 million.

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Press release from Sibur