Experts appreciated the deal for the purchase by Rosatom of Shishkarev’s share in Delo Group

Rosatom bought the share of Sergey Shishkarev in the Delo group of companies and brought its stake in it to 100%. Experts interviewed by Radio RBC told what the value of the transaction is and what the development potential of the state corporation is taking into account the new asset.

According to Pavel Ivankin, president of the National Research Center for Transportation and Infrastructure, the deal should be seen as an “optimization case” that will allow Rosatom to concentrate its logistics segment. He recalled that the state corporation already includes the FESCO transport group with assets in almost all ports.

Accordingly, on the one hand, it is the possibility of such a monopoly service, on the other hand, it is the responsibility of Rosatom. He now needs to pursue a balanced policy, because in addition to the Northern Sea Route of the FESCO group, they received, in principle, control over the container market of the Russian Federation.

Rosatom entered the capital of Delo Group in 2019 and gradually increased its share from 30 to 49%. The remaining 51% belonged to Sergei Shishkarev. Under the terms of Russian roulette, the price of redemption of Shishkarev’s share was determined at 77 billion rubles.

FESCO is one of the largest participants in the Russian transport and logistics market. The Group combines port, rail and integrated logistics assets, operates a fleet of approximately 30 vessels, operates more than 10,000 fitting platforms and more than 135,000 containers.

In fact, Rosatom is building a “national logistics champion” – an international company, explained Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of INFOLine-Analytics. In general, we can already say with confidence that this process is almost complete. Those assets that are attractive to the company, they are already in the contour. Further, there is a serious potential for synergy through CapEx (the company’s costs of acquiring or creating long-term assets). - RBC) and, of course, through management consolidation. As a result, the value of these assets immediately rises, he said.

At the same time, Rosatom continues to work on creating a joint logistics holding company with port operator DP World (UAE), which will also allow the state corporation to strengthen its positions in the international market, Burmistrov said. This is a super-profitable deal, primarily for the buyer, when Rosatom launches a global consolidation of its assets. Immediately, the multiples change in a very significant way. I think we can safely say that the share for which paid, it can cost one and a half times more, he added.

The fact that the transaction is beneficial to Rosatom in terms of expanding its potential and for further consolidation of the market was also agreed by independent investment expert Maxim Kuroedov. If we talk in general sectorally about the margins of this business, then infrastructure assets show one of the best margins among all other segments and reach 70%, and sometimes even more, so when restarting, I think that this period will not take much time.

The fact that after the completion of the deal to buy Shishkarev’s stake in the Delo group, the state corporation will begin consolidating all logistics assets, Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachev himself said. The result will be the creation of the largest national logistics company. Sergey Shishkarev, in turn, said that after the sale of the business project will not leave Russia, but wants to develop logistics projects and transport corridors.