Sistema JSFC buys Finnish manufacturer of wooden houses

AFK Sistema may buy the Finnish company Honka. The day before, the corporation bought about 0.1% of one of the largest manufacturers of wooden houses, after which it made an offer to other shareholders, valuing the company at € 7.8 million

The offer of AFK Sistema to redeem Honkarakenne Oyj (brand Honka), the company said on the Finnish stock exchange NASDAQ Helsinki. For each share of Series A and Series B, the corporation offers to pay € 1.5. Thus, the company was valued at approximately € 7.9 million. The goal is to accumulate 67% of Honkarakenne Oyj.

“Our public offer is very attractive for Honka shareholders: we offer to buy back shares with a substantial premium to the market price,” the words of the president of Sistema JSFC Mikhail Shamolin are quoted in the message.

The offer price is approximately 14.5% higher than the closing price of trading on Honka shares on the NASDAQ Helsinki stock exchange on November 2. As of 13:00 Moscow time, the company's shares rose in price by 12.98%, to € 1.48 each.

The offer will be valid from November 11 and will last about five weeks. However, as the company said, this period may be extended.

According to the official website of Honkarakenne Oyj, 72.5% of the company belongs to three dozen individuals and legal entities.

The planned transaction, according to Shamolin, is consistent with the strategy of transforming the Segezha Group wood processing holding company, which is part of AFK Sistema, into one of the world leaders in the wooden housing construction market.

Segezha Group is one of the largest Russian vertically integrated holding companies in the woodworking industry. Its assets include 7 million hectares of forests, woodworking, as well as pulp and paper enterprises in Russia and Europe. The company's share in the paper production market is about 52% in Russia and about 16.5% in Europe.

The structure of the Segezha Group includes the Sokolsky woodworking plant (DOK), the largest in the European part of Russia. This is the first company in the country developing the process of manufacturing glued beams. After a comprehensive reconstruction, the production capacities of Sokolsky DOK reached 180 thousand cubic meters. m of dry timber, about 65 thousand cubic meters. m glued wooden structures and about 37 thousand cubic meters. m. of laminated log houses. According to its own data, the group occupies about 10% of the wooden housing construction market in Russia.

In turn, the Finnish Honkarakenne Oyj is one of the world leaders in the production of log houses. Every year it produces 3,500 houses (in just 50 years of the company's existence, 85,000 were built in 50 countries).

The company's revenue in 2015 amounted to € 39 million. At the same time, 58% of Honka houses were sold outside of Finland and the Baltic states. Of these, 31% accounted for Russia and the CIS countries - the same amount as in 2014.

For the nine months of 2016, sales amounted to € 25.8 million, a decrease of 13% compared to the same period last year.