7

The Vienna-based Ring International holding, active in office supplies and industrial coatings, will pay EUR 520 per share for Helios, which is a leading coatings maker in SE Europe and the first company to have been sold among the 15 firms slated by the Alenka Bratušek government for privatisation.

The holding, which TV Slovenija reported will be supplied with the funds for the deal by US financial fund Blackstone, plans to publish a bid for the acquisition of the remaining 26.88% once it meets all criteria, including anti-trust clearance.

The share price agreed means the entire company is worth more than EUR 250m. EUR 145m of this is equity capital, while the company's debt as at the end of the first half of this year is also factored in.

The stake in Helios was sold by a consortium of six banks (NLB, Abanka, NKBM, Banka Celje, Gorenjska banka, Probanka), two insurers (Zavarovalnica Triglav, Modra zavarovalnica) and five funds (SOD, Triglav skladi, NFD, Primorski skladi, KBM Infond).

Ring International holding CEO Gerald Martens told the press in Ljubljana that Helios would remain headquartered in Slovenia. The brand is also to be preserved, while the number of employees might even increase.

The Domžale-based company, some of which ended up in banks' hands as collateral for loans to the Church-related Zvon Ena Holding, presently employs 2,200 people and has ten production facilities in Slovenia, Croatia, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine.

In 2012, the entire Ring International group employed around 1,300 people on three continents and 13 production locations.

Martens announced that given Ring's plans to integrate part of its coatings division into Helios's operations, it expects to secure more effectiveness at the level of the group, especially in the field of research and development.

Ring International contractually committed itself to have the research activities centred in Slovenia for as long as this will be commercially feasible.

Helios will become the headquarters and the main brand of the new joint company, an active consolidator of the coatings industry in Europe with a focus on SE Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet republics), Martens announced.

Holding Ring International already owns a company in Slovenia, having acquired the Železniki-based metal stationary products manufacturer Niko in 2008. Since the acquisition, the Austrian owners have invested more than EUR 8m into machinery and an upgrade of the supply chain.

Meanwhile, the management of Helios, headed by Uroš Slavinec, said it was happy with the sale to Ring International, saying in a press release that the company would finally get a stable ownership structure.

Helios management pointed to Ring's experience in the industry, saying that its coatings division generated around EUR 110m in annual revenue, and expressed hope for "a successful future, based on synergies".