Billionaire Nesis’s United Wagon to offer 10% in Moscow IPO
Billionaire Alexander Nesis’s PAO Research & Production Corp. United Wagon Co. said it will offer at least 10 percent of its stock in an initial public offering in Moscow.
The sale, planned for the end of April, includes a 5 percent stake owned by a Jersey-registered company controlled by Nesis’s ICT Group, United Wagon said in an e-mailed statement Friday. The remaining shares will be newly issued, according to company documents published last week.
“We expect that the offering will further strengthen RPC UWC’s position in the rail industry and expand our access to the capital markets,” United Wagon Chief Executive Officer Roman Savushkin said in the statement.
It will be the third stock offering in Russia this year as the economy sinks into recession under the weight of sanctions that have raised borrowing costs and a slump in oil prices.
Hypermarket operator Lenta Ltd. raised $225 million in March, with four anchor investors participating, and a company linked to billionaire Sergei Galitskiy sold 9.8 billion rubles ($197 million) of stock in his retailer PJSC Magnit in February.
The shares will be traded on the Moscow Exchange. VTB Capital and Otkritie Financial Group are managing the sale.
Nesis, who is also an investor in Polymetal International Plc, has spent about $1.5 billion since 2012 to build a rail-car manufacturing plant near St. Petersburg and has set up a leasing company, both of which are part of United Wagon. It also manages a coal-shipment operator and engineering center.
Nesis estimated the value of the rail business at $2 billion to $3 billion, according to an interview at the end of October 2013. Vedomosti newspaper reported a lower figure Friday, saying the company is valued at 70 billion rubles to 90 billion rubles for the deal, citing unidentified people.
