USC does not wait for its "Star"

The United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) may lose a blocking stake in the superstructure Zvezda, which is being built by a consortium of Rosneft, Rosneftegaz and Gazprombank in Primorsky Krai.
29.05.2018
Kommersant
Origin source
The consortium will buy out an additional issue of the DCSs to invest shipments outside the Star, after which the share of USC in the project will be reduced to 9.81%. The transfer to the Ministry of Industry and Trade is explained by the division of civil and military capacities of the project. On the fate of the remaining package of USC, the corporation will negotiate with the consortium and departments.

USC may reduce its stake in JSC Far East Center for Shipbuilding and Shiprepairing (DCSSC, builds the superstar Zvezda in the Big Stone) from 25% plus 1 share to 9.81%, follows from the draft amendments to the presidential decree of July 21, 2014, prepared by the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the year. Now 75% minus 2 shares of the DCSs at JSC Modern Shipbuilding Technologies (CTC, Rosneft Consortium, Rosneftegaz and GPB), the blocking stake is assigned to USC. But, as it follows from the explanatory note, extra-budgetary funds are needed to transfer beyond the super-shipy's repair facilities. They will be provided by ATS STS, which will purchase an additional issue of the DCSs.

The DCSU was established by a presidential decree when the USC was established in March 2007. In 2009, on the basis of the Zvezda Distillery in Bolshoy Kamen, it was decided to build a superverb, on its tab there was Igor Sechin, then the head of the board of directors of USC. Initially, the USC partner for the project was South Korean Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME), but in 2012 it came out of it. And in 2015, according to the decree of the president, USC transferred 75 minus 2 shares to the STS. Today, the DTSS includes a number of organizations that specialize in the repair of warships and ships (for more details, see the information).

Now it is assumed that the super-ship will receive large commercial orders, including vessels for offshore development, but, as Kommersant has repeatedly wrote, the formation of the Star's portfolio of orders is mainly due to its shareholder Rosneft or other state structures. At the same time, the government tried to create a filling system for Zvezda by orders with the help of normative acts restricting the construction of new vessels abroad (see, for example, Kommersant, March 22, about such amendments to the legislation).

The USC Kommersant reported that the decision to change the share of the corporation in the assets transferred to it by the state is taken by the main shareholder. The fate of the remaining stake in DVSSS "will be determined in the process of negotiations with other shareholders of the company and the supervising agencies", concluded in USC. A senior government official said that in an ideal situation, one could try to sell the stake to a private investor: "This would be positively assessed by the country's leadership, since the emphasis now is on developing PPPs." But, according to him, "Zvezda" is positioned as a place for building military ships of large displacement (its dry dock will allow to build two aircraft carriers in parallel), so the admission of foreign investors will have to be coordinated. For Russian investors, the share of less than 10% is of no interest, since it does not provide an opportunity to participate in the management of the DCCS, the interlocutor of Kommersant believes.

In the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Kommersant was informed that the mechanism for transferring the ship-repair capacities of the Zvezda DWT was developed jointly by STS and DTSSS. The main goal is to divide the capacities into civilian and military subjects, the mechanism was approved by the president, noted in the ministry. To implement it, it is necessary to amend the president's decree. Rosneft and Gazprombank did not respond to a request from Kommersant.

The head of the agency "Infoline-Analytics" Mikhail Burmistrov estimates the amount of investments in the transfer of capacities to 10 billion rubles. The decision is quite logical, since Zvezda attracts new orders, and the combination of the operating repair enterprise that works with nuclear submarines and the offshore superverfie creates risks of reducing the efficiency of production and logistics processes, the expert believes. According to him, it would be advisable for the USC to completely abandon the asset, since the package of up to 10% does not promote cooperation or improve the efficiency of shareholders' interaction. The presence of USC in the superverted capital is inexpedient either for the enterprise or for a corporation that could direct the freed funds to invest in its own enterprises, Mr. Burmistrov argues. But the repurchase of the remaining package from USC will be an additional financial burden for STS, and therefore the expert is not sure whether the consortium is ready to do it in the foreseeable future.

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