Sovcomflot plans flotation
Sovcomflot, a Russian state-owned shipping company with close links to Gazprom, the state-controlled energy company, is talking to investment banks about a flotation this year.
The business, which is building four liquefied natural gas tankers for use by Gazprom in projects such as Sakhalin, the large gas field in eastern Russia, will launch on the Moscow stock exchange but is also looking at a possible secondary listing in London.
Sergey Frank, Sovcomflot's chief executive and a former transport minister, said it wanted to show it could compete with the best maritime groups in the world.
"We are committed to improving our financial disclosure, upgrading our corporate governance and ultimately benchmarking ourselves against the stock market," he said.
Up to 20% of the shipbuilder is expected to be offered for sale. The company is valued at around £1bn but has just received support from Russia's ministry of economic development and trade for a merger with the 50% state-owned Novoship, which will double the size of the combined operation and give it a fleet of 115 vessels and a value of around £2bn.
Some private shareholders have expressed concern about the proposed tie-up, seeing it as a government attempt to reassert more power over shipping, in the same way that Gazprom has been used in the energy sector.
Mr Frank dismissed such worries, arguing that it was merely a "transfer" of assets, not a takeover.
Sovcomflot, which has 19 ships being built for delivery over the next two years, will soon report earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for 2006 of about $289m (£147m), compared with $246m in 2005, and revenues up from about $410m-$510m.
The Moscow-based company has been slowly and quietly expanding and has recently taken over a specialist Spanish chemical ship operator, Marpetrol. It said it was looking at more potential acquisitions.
"We are hungry and are looking but we are interested in buying expertise, client bases and market shares," Mr Frank said.
Sovcomflot is also keen to position itself as a specialist shipper of liquefied natural gas and particularly a company that can offer services in extreme areas, such as the Barents Sea, where Gazprom is planning a massive gas field development, Shtokman, to serve European markets.
Sovcomflot was started 30 years ago to meet a shortage of shipping capacity to bring grain back to the Soviet Union but has moved strongly into tankers and now has a close relationship with another Kremlin-influenced oil firm, Rosneft.
The business, which is building four liquefied natural gas tankers for use by Gazprom in projects such as Sakhalin, the large gas field in eastern Russia, will launch on the Moscow stock exchange but is also looking at a possible secondary listing in London.
Sergey Frank, Sovcomflot's chief executive and a former transport minister, said it wanted to show it could compete with the best maritime groups in the world.
"We are committed to improving our financial disclosure, upgrading our corporate governance and ultimately benchmarking ourselves against the stock market," he said.
Up to 20% of the shipbuilder is expected to be offered for sale. The company is valued at around £1bn but has just received support from Russia's ministry of economic development and trade for a merger with the 50% state-owned Novoship, which will double the size of the combined operation and give it a fleet of 115 vessels and a value of around £2bn.
Some private shareholders have expressed concern about the proposed tie-up, seeing it as a government attempt to reassert more power over shipping, in the same way that Gazprom has been used in the energy sector.
Mr Frank dismissed such worries, arguing that it was merely a "transfer" of assets, not a takeover.
Sovcomflot, which has 19 ships being built for delivery over the next two years, will soon report earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for 2006 of about $289m (£147m), compared with $246m in 2005, and revenues up from about $410m-$510m.
The Moscow-based company has been slowly and quietly expanding and has recently taken over a specialist Spanish chemical ship operator, Marpetrol. It said it was looking at more potential acquisitions.
"We are hungry and are looking but we are interested in buying expertise, client bases and market shares," Mr Frank said.
Sovcomflot is also keen to position itself as a specialist shipper of liquefied natural gas and particularly a company that can offer services in extreme areas, such as the Barents Sea, where Gazprom is planning a massive gas field development, Shtokman, to serve European markets.
Sovcomflot was started 30 years ago to meet a shortage of shipping capacity to bring grain back to the Soviet Union but has moved strongly into tankers and now has a close relationship with another Kremlin-influenced oil firm, Rosneft.