Globaltrans founders leave the company
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Mergers and acquisitions in the railway car operating market do not stop. Following the First Freight Company and Neftetransservice, Globaltrans also changes its main shareholder. The stakes of the four founders of the company are being bought out by Kazakh businessman Kairat Itemgenov, whose main assets are located outside of logistics – in the pharmaceutical and hotel sectors. Mr. Itemgenov will own about 32% of the company, of which 56% is free float. Analysts consider Globaltrans a good investment and an expensive asset with stable growth prospects, but warn that if the fleet continues to grow on the network, there is a risk that the government will take regulatory measures to curb it.
As Kommersant learned, major shareholders of Globaltrans sold their shares in the company to Kazakh businessman Kairat Itemgenov. Aqniet Capital LLP, controlled by Mr. Itemgenov, registered in Kazakhstan, completed the acquisition of the shares of Nikita Mishin, Konstantin Nikolaev and Sergey Maltsev, which they owned through Onyx Investments Ltd, Mapple Valley Investments Ltd and Goldriver Resources Ltd, respectively.
As a result of the transactions, Kairat Itemgenov became the owner of 26.2% of Globaltrans shares (including small stakes acquired from unrelated shareholders).
And after two other agreed upon transactions are closed to acquire the share of Alexander Eliseev and another unrelated shareholder, which is expected no later than the second half of 2024, the new owner’s share in Globaltrans will reach 31.6%.
Globaltrans confirmed this information. Nikita Mishin told Kommersant through a representative that he intends to use the funds for his charitable and investment projects. According to Kommersant, the transaction is of a monetary nature, its amount is unknown.
Kairat Itemgenov is on the Forbes list of the richest businessmen in Kazakhstan. He owns the Aqniet Group, which manages one of the largest pharmacy chains in Kazakhstan, Europharma, and a network of pharmacies in the Arzan Pharm regions. He also owns the Movenpick and Pana hotels in Moscow, the Zhetysu hotel complex in Almaty, where the Novotel Living and Ibis brands are represented, as well as a large contractor working in the energy sector – KBI Energy. In the logistics industry, he has a company called Satti Logistics, which deals with the delivery of goods by road.
Globaltrans is one of the largest freight railway operators in the CIS market. Founded in 2004 by Andrey Filatov, Nikita Mishin, Konstantin Nikolaev, Sergey Maltsev and Alexander Eliseev, who until recently controlled about 43% of the company. Another 56% of the company’s capital is free float.
At the end of the first half of 2023, Globaltrans ranked sixth in the Infoline Rail Russia Top operator rating. It has about 66 thousand cars under management, including 62 thousand in ownership as of mid-2023. Globaltrans’ net profit under IFRS at the end of 2022 increased 1.7 times, amounting to 24.9 billion rubles, adjusted EBITDA increased proportionally to 49.2 billion rubles, adjusted revenue increased 1.4 times, to 81.6 billion rub. At the end of the first half of 2023, net profit also increased 1.7 times, to 20.9 billion rubles, revenue – by 2%, to 43.3 billion rubles.
Only one of the founders, Andrey Filatov (his Marigold Investments owns 11.5% of the shares), is not leaving the capital of Globaltrans. Mr. Filatov told Kommersant through a representative that he “does not plan and never planned” to leave the Globaltrans business. “Investing in the Russian economy, including in the transport sector, is a key direction in my work,” he said, expressing confidence that “the arrival of a new shareholder will continue to strengthen the company’s position in the Russian railway transportation market.”
According to Kommersant, the new owner plans to retain the company’s management.
Thus, the current chairman of the board of directors of Globaltrans, Sergey Maltsev, having ceased to be a shareholder, intends to remain in the company and be nominated to the new board after the completion of redomiciliation in Abu Dhabi. Globaltrans CEO Valery Shpakov, head of Balttransservice, part of Globaltrans Kirill Prokofiev, and other top managers will also retain their posts, says Kommersant’s interlocutor familiar with the plans of the new shareholder.
The head of Infoline-Analytics, Mikhail Burmistrov, considers Globaltrans a good investment for a Kazakh businessman: the company is transparent, with high efficiency requirements, has assets in key segments of gondola cars and owns a very promising tank car operator, Balttransservice, whose high income and stable customer base guarantee the presence at key sites of their own train formations.
Globaltrans has always followed a conservative strategy in purchasing rolling stock and maintained a high share of service contracts, the expert says, which, on the one hand, currently leads to slightly more conservative expectations in terms of revenue growth, since the spot market now has extremely high rates and a fleet shortage. and on the other hand, it guarantees high dividend yield for the investor who comes for a long time.
Mikhail Burmistrov notes that Globaltrans completes redomiciliation, which means the company will be able to return to paying dividends. The market in the horizon of two or three years looks optimistic, the threshold for entering it due to the high cost of rolling stock and the limited capacity of carriage factories is now very high, and therefore, the expert says, one can understand Mr. Filatov, who is counting on an increase in the value of the company in the future. In his opinion, the price of Globaltrans should be somewhere at the level of its market capitalization based on the cost of 700–750 rubles. per share, that is, about 128–137 billion rubles: “An extremely high premium is hardly possible, but there are no grounds for a discount either.”
There is a serious reorganization going on in the transport sector, and it is not over yet: there are still deals to be made in the second and third echelons, says Vladimir Savchuk, deputy general director of IPEM.
This will bring new players to the market who will introduce new approaches and launch new trends. “The fact that investors from other countries come to us is probably also a trend: they feel confident in their investments and in the return on them,” says the expert.
In his opinion, the main risk in the operator business is that the growth of the fleet significantly outpaces the growth of loading and cargo turnover, so a collapse is likely in 2025–2026, in response to which the state will be forced to take regulatory measures limiting the supply of fleet to the network. “Perhaps the shareholders, anticipating these difficulties, decided to get out of business at the peak of the value of operator companies,” Mr. Savchuk believes.
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