Alum minority shareholders await Russian oligarch's bid

Pioche Consultants Limited (registered in Belize), the new owner of the majority stake in alumina producer Alum Tulcea, is to initiate a public takeover offering for the shares owned by the other shareholders in Alum.

Pioche, whose shareholders are not officially known, is obliged by law to hold the offering after becoming the majority stakeholder in Alum.

The offering has to be announced over the next two months.

Last December, Pioche purchased Balli Metal SA Bucharest’s participation (67.69% of Alum capital) in a transaction on the RASDAQ worth over 7.3 million euros.

According to market sources, Pioche belongs to Russian oligarch Vitali Matsitsky, who also controls Romania’s main aluminium producer, Alro Slatina.

Matsitsky has recently spent a lot of time in Bucharest in order to sort out the problems currently faced by Alro following the resignation of three managers and to negotiate the takeover of Alum.

Alumina produced by Alum is one of the main raw materials for the aluminium produced by Alro.

Pioche Consultants will have to offer at least the same price per share that it paid to Balli. As a result, the offering is likely to run to at least 3.5 million euros.

Alum’s main shareholder is SIF banat-Crisana, which owns 23.8%. At the price at which the majority stake was transferred, the shares owned by SIF Banat-Crisana are worth 2.3 million euros.

SIF Banat-Crisana representatives were unavailable for comment on the future offering for Alum stock.
vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro