The third largest operator Neftetransservice was sold to structures close to SUEK

Closing the unprecedented pre-New Year series of large railway transactions, the third largest railway operator Neftetransservice, specializing in the transportation of oil cargo, is changing hands. The company was acquired by structures associated with SUEK. Now the main question is how the buyer will manage the tanks – a non-core segment for him, requiring separate competencies in operation. However, according to experts, a buyer for the now scarce tanks will be found instantly.

Neftetransservice, the third largest operator in the railway industry, is acquiring structures associated with SUEK, five market interlocutors told Kommersant. Negotiations went on for several months. One of the sources says that NTS shareholders offered the asset to various companies. SUEK did not respond to Kommersant’s request, and Neftetransservice declined to comment.

The deal was closed on December 21, a source familiar with the situation told Kommersant. According to three Kommersant sources, the FAS gave it a go; the regulator did not respond to Kommersant’s request.

According to Kommersant’s information, the buyer of NTS will be a closed-end mutual fund managed by Kinetik Capital LLC, which is not formally affiliated with SUEK (according to SPARK, 100% belongs to Vadim Solomakhin). The corresponding LLC has already received a loan from SUEK, says one of Kommersant’s interlocutors. The shareholders of the closed mutual fund will not be disclosed.

Over the past six months, this is the third major transaction in the railway transport segment. In November, the largest operator company in the Russian Federation, First Freight Company (PGK; see Kommersant, November 2), was sold. From the structures of Vladimir Lisin, who owned it for 12 years, it passed to JSC Aurora Invest, whose co-owners are called Timur and Ruslan Babayev on the market (the latter has already been appointed general director of Freight One). The deal is estimated at 270 billion rubles, a source close to its parties told Kommersant. The United Carriage Company (UWC), currently the largest car-building enterprise in terms of production volume, has changed its owner. The buyer is unknown; the head of Trust Bank, Alexander Sokolov (the bank owned 93.6% of UWC at the time of the sale), only informed RBC in December that the investor was a specialized one. According to market participants, he is close to the shareholders of Transmashholding. The transaction amount is not disclosed.

Kommersant’s interlocutors do not know what the buyer’s future plans for Neftetransservice are, but they assume that the gondola cars will be transferred under the management of the National Transport Company (NTK, the transport operator of SUEK and Eurochem), and the tanks will be sold.

One of Kommersant’s sources says that the transaction amount is 50 billion rubles. plus debt, which, according to him, is about 100 billion rubles. Another insists that the amount is 50 billion rubles. “categorically incorrect.” According to the head of Infoline-Analytics, Mikhail Burmistrov, the minimum value of the NTS business is 120 billion rubles. excluding debt, the fleet alone, taking into account current prices on the secondary market, is valued at no less than 150 billion rubles. He says that NTS owns, taking into account financial leasing, 37.6 thousand tank cars and 25.4 thousand gondola cars. The average age of the tank fleet is 18 years (with a service life of 32 years) and gondola cars – 10.6 years (for a typical fleet – 22 years).

For SUEK, says Mr. Burmistrov, this is a good deal: now the easiest way to get a fleet is on the secondary market, since prices are extremely high and car-building capacities are busy. But NTK has a large business in the transportation of oil cargo, which would be logical to sell, since this is a non-core business that requires specific competencies. There are few large specialized players capable of buying such a business entirely – Transoil, Railgo, Globaltrans, transport companies associated with LUKOIL, and in the case of such a transaction, questions may arise from the antimonopoly authorities. However, according to the expert, a buyer for the tanks will easily be found: there is a large-scale shortage of the fleet in this segment and such cars are also of interest to structures associated with oil companies.

Natalya Skorlygina, Evgeny Zainullin