VITEBSK, 26 December (BelTA) – The state-owned share makes 55% of the charter capital of SOOO Belwest and is valued at an equivalent of over $10 million, BelTA learned from the company's Director General Yuri Sumaneyev. The executive made a few comments to describe progress in efforts to set up the footwear holding company Belwest.
The value of the state share had to be estimated to fulfill the presidential decree, which provides for selling the share owned by the Belarusian state light industry concern Bellegprom to OOO Belwest Group for the sake of setting up the holding company Belwest Group. An independent evaluation was performed by a state organization using several market methods to verify the correctness of the evaluation.
“It is a considerable financial burden for us. We are talking in essence about the cost of the footwear enterprise located at our main manufacturing site in Vitebsk,” Yuri Sumaneyev noted. He added that the estimated value is roughly ten times of what the Russian shareholder paid for a 45% stake in Belwest in late 2002. The 45% stake was made available after the German founder of Belwest Company decided to withdraw its assets.
The contract to sell the state share in SOOO Belwest was signed on 25 October. The presidential decree to sell the state share to Belwest Group provides for payment in equal installments over the course of five years, with the size of the installments to be indexed according to the established procedure.
The holding company Belwest has been registered by the Economy Ministry. In line with the presidential decree it includes 30 enterprises run by OOO Belwest Group. The status of the Belarusian-Russian joint venture remains unchanged since the shareholders include the Belarusian company OOO Belwest Group and the Russian company Investprom.
The owners intend to keep things as they are for now because any changes are impractical. Work will focus on investments in individual enterprises and the development of the holding company as a whole, Yuri Sumaneyev specified. Besides, Belwest Group's right to manage the acquired state-owned share is limited until the commitments specified by the presidential decree are honored. In line with the decree the company's focus on footwear production will remain unchanged. The annual output is supposed to be raised to at least 3 million pairs. At least Br30 million will have to be invested in the fixed capital of SOOO Belwest by 31 December 2023 for the sake of modernizing existing facilities and creating new ones. The average number of employees will have to remain at least as high as the figure registered in January 2019 till 1 January 2021.
A number of organizational adjustments will be implemented. Belwest's existing retail chains of 26 organizations in Russia will have to be reorganized into one commercial entity, Yuri Sumaneyev explained. Remote manufacturing divisions operating in small populated localities across Vitebsk Oblast will have to undergo the same transformation.
Shareholders of the holding company Belwest include the managing company OOO Belwest Group, SOOO Belwest, 27 retail organizations, and OOO LACIT. The latter was established several years ago to develop software and automate the main manufacturing processes. The list of shareholders can be expanded with other legal persons as daughter enterprises without amending the presidential decree.
