Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said that a partial sale of assets of the state-owned railroad monopoly Russian Railways is planned for this year, though particular deals are not being discussed at the moment.
"In any case this is not a goal in itself," he said, adding that the assets will only be sold if "it is efficient and improves the state of the assets themselves and is beneficial for the Russian Railways from the financial point of view."
According to Dvorkovich, "there are plans" to sell the company’s assets this year, though "the plans themselves and particular cases will be discussed separately."
Earlier Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said in an interview with Bloomberg that the privatization plan regarding Russian Railways’ assets may include TransContainer.
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In December, President of Russian Railways Oleg Belozerov said that the sale of the company’s shares in TransContainer is not reasonable so far. He added that several companies, including Freight One (part of Vladimir Lisin’s UCL), take interest in acquiring Russian Railways’ stake in TransContainer.Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov said earlier that the Ministry is ready to consider the positions of market players, Russian Railways in the first place, regarding the monopoly’s controlling stake in TransContainer.
Russia’s TransContainer is an operator of over 24,000 container flatcars, around 64,500 high-capacity containers, and 45 freight terminals over the Russian railway network.
The company’s shares are traded on the Moscow Exchange, depositary receipts are traded on the London Stock Exchange.
Source: Tass