November 27, 2013 [EnergoNews IA] - Transneft and Summa Group are formally prepared to reorganise the operations of Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port Group (NCSP): Transneft intends to become owner or manager of the oil terminals and Summa Group the dry cargo terminals. The conflict between the parties can be beneficial to Rosneft, which wants to acquire 20% of government stake in the port.
NCSP shareholders, Transneft and Summa Group, are planning to redistribute the port operations. Nikolay Tokarev, President of Transneft, said that the parties are “considering options for future cooperation.” According to him, Transneft can get the NCSP oil terminals under its’ management, and Summa Group the dry cargo terminals. A source close to the NCSP confirms that “it is a mutual decision, to which the parties have come recently.” There is an understanding between the parties regarding a scheme of how to divide the respective businesses, but the structure of the transaction has not yet been worked out and no specific deadlines for agreements have been mentioned.
Nikolai Tokarev noted that no changes in the shareholder structure will take place, “we are talking about optimizing our businesses.” According to him, next to the business splitup, the distribution of areas of influence are being discussed, where each company will appoint a deputy general director for coordination of the divided business structures. Summa Group does not provide any comments to the situation.
Currently, Novoport Holding Ltd, a 50/50 JV between Transneft and Summa Group, owns 50.1 % of the NCSP. 10% belongs to Transneft itself, 5.3 % to Russian Railways and the remaining 20% to the Federal Property Management Agency. This latter 20% package has to be privatized before the end of the year, but as reported by the government sources, this is unlikely to happen during the remaining months. Rosneft has shown its’ interest and stated its’ readiness to purchase the government owned share package several times.
