VTB Selling EADS Stake for $1.4Bln
- By Unknown
- Dec. 28 2007 00:00
The sale, which was approved Dec. 20 by the board of the Development Bank, formerly called Vneshekonombank, ends an investment that drew fire from investors during VTB's $8 billion stock market float earlier this year.
The price for the stake in Airbus maker European Aeronautics, Defense and Space Co., at 24.23 euros ($35) per share, is at a premium to Monday's closing level of 22.56 euros and values the 41 million shares at around $1.43 billion.
That compares with a valuation for the stake in VTB's accounts of $1.40 billion at the end of 2006 and $1.24 billion at the end of September, suggesting that VTB may be able to book a one-off gain from the sale.
"The stake price is 2 percent above the valuation in the year-end accounts for 2006, and 16 percent above the estimate at Sept. 30, 2007," said Svetlana Kovalskaya, an analyst at Renaissance Capital. "That gives a gain of nearly $200 million, which is significant in relation to the profits we are forecasting."
VTB chief executive Andrei Kostin has said state-owned United Aircraft Corporation will be the final buyer of the stake, which the government bought last year hoping to win a strategic say in EADS.
EADS's core shareholders, France and Germany, rebuffed that approach, but an eventual purchase by the United Aircraft Corporation would create minority cross-shareholdings that may serve as a basis for a future partnership.
EADS owns a 10 percent stake in Irkut, the maker of the Sukhoi fighter jet and one of several companies being folded into the United Aircraft Corporation.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, a member of the Development Bank's supervisory board, has supported its plans to buy stakes in companies abroad.