Status: 03/10/2023 1:43 p.m
The automotive supplier Schaeffler wants to sell a Russian plant to a holding company owned by the Austrian company Wolf. The transaction is said to be compatible with European sanctions against Russia.
The Russian business of the automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler is sold to the Austrian entrepreneur Siegfried Wolf. A spokesman for the company confirmed this. The company’s annual report also states that on December 29, Schaeffler signed a contract to sell the plant in Ulyanovsk to PromAvtoConsult. However, the approval of the Russian authorities is still pending.
The purchase price is stated in the Schaeffler annual report as ten million euros. Schaeffler wants to give the 150 employees who have worked for the company for years a future, it said. The company shares are first sold to the Russian company PromAvtoConsult and then go to Wolf.
The 65-year-old Austrian Wolf sits on the Schaeffler supervisory board and heads the supervisory board at the Regensburg-based automotive supplier Vitesco. From 2010 to 2019 he was Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Russian GAZ Group.
Schaeffler parts in Russian vans?
The “Spiegel” reported that PromAvtoConsult managing director Roman Vovk wrote to the economic adviser to the Russian President Vladimir Putin, advertising that Schaeffler parts could be used in vehicles of the GAZ group.
According to “Spiegel” information, the GAZ group also manufactures the Gaz Sadko transporter, which the Russian army uses to transport troops and heavy equipment. The GAZ Group is under sanctions, Schaeffler says it has stopped supplying.
“In line” with sanctions
The investor Wolf had informed the “Spiegel” at its request that the transaction had been extensively examined. It came to the conclusion that it was “in line with applicable US and EU sanctions law”.
According to the magazine, however, the business also calls the Ukrainian anti-corruption authority on the scene. Wolf is therefore close to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, against whom the US and the European Union have imposed sanctions. Wolf and Deripaska have not yet commented on the sale of the Schaeffler business.