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EBRD takes stake in Russia's largest refrigerator plant
Investment to improve Italian-owned Stinol facility in southern Russia
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has acquired a 10 per cent stake in ZAO Stinol, the largest refrigerator plant in Russia, from Italy's Merloni Elettrodomestici S.p.A. The €13.6 million investment will be used to improve the plant, increase its efficiency and help it produce appliances that are more environmentally friendly.
Noreen Doyle, the EBRD's First Vice President, said the Bank expects that the deal will promote greater competition by setting new standards for the rest of the appliance industry in Russia.
The EBRD will be represented on the board of directors of Stinol, underlining its support for a strategic investor committed to introducing best industry practises throughout the Russian company's operations. The Merloni group, Europe's third biggest maker of home appliances, will hold 85 per cent of the shares. The rest are held by the Italian development bank, Simest.
Over the next four years, the company plans to make further investments to upgrade the plant, which at present can produce up to 1 million refrigerators a year. Merloni is also considering building a washing machine facility at Stinol with an annual capacity of 300,000 units. The CIS market for home appliances is expected to grow by 10 percent a year over the next four or five years.
Merloni bought Stinol for €136 million in October 2000, nearly a decade after its engineers had helped build the plant at Lipetsk, some 400 kilometres south of Moscow. Stinol, which employs 6,000 people, has a 35 percent share of the local market.
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