Alexey Mordashov
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Mordashov Splits Power Machines
Alexey Mordashov has raised his share in Power Machines to 63 percent and split his package between three offshore companies in order to avoid the requirement under the law on joint stock societies that he make an offer to the company’s minority shareholders. Otherwise, he would have had to buy Power Machines shares from the minority holders with a 9-percent premium over the market price.
According to the company’s report for the second quarter, the Cypriote Highstat company, which had owned 55.4 percent of Power Machines until May of this year, now owns 30 percent of it. Meanwhile, two new offshore companies, King Rail Trading Ltd. and Ashington Trading Ltd., have appeared among the owners with 16.55-percent shares each. Siemens’ share remains unchanged at 25 percent. It is not known who sold Mordashov the additional 7.7 percent of the shares, or what his goal was in buying them. Analysts estimate that the share cost him about $140 million. One possible motivation for the purchase is to make a secondary public offering without reducing his controlling package in the company.
Mordashov obtained control of Power Machines at the end of last year. Because of his decision to avoid making a purchase offer to the minority shareholders, he had voting rights for only 30 percent of the company’s shares. He managed to reassert control over the company, however, when he reached an agreement with Siemens to make his deputy at Severstal Group Igor Kostin the general director of Power Machines. Now Mordashov will have shareholders control over the company as well, since it would be difficult to prove the affiliations of the offshore companies with Mordashov.
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