OREANDA-NEWS  The Russian assets of the German manufacturer of automotive components Schaeffler, which received permission from Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of November to sell the business, were acquired by the Moscow company PromAvtoConsult, it follows from the data of the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.

According to the register, the deal was closed by December 15. PromAvtoConsult LLC became the owner of 100% shares in the production and trading subsidiaries of the German concern – LLC Schaffler Rus (Ulyanovsk, production of automotive components) and LLC Schaffler Russland (Moscow, product trade).

The Ulyanovsk Schaeffler plant has been producing bearings for automobile and railway transport, as well as other automotive components since 2014. Investments in the organization of production amounted to 2 billion rubles. According to the SPARK-Interfax analytical system, the revenue of Schaffler Rus LLC by the end of 2022 decreased by more than 1.5 times to 734 million rubles, net loss amounted to 300 million rubles against a profit of 76 million rubles in 2021. The turnover of Schaffler Russland LLC fell 5.3 times last year to almost 2 billion rubles, a loss of 262 million rubles against 205 million rubles of profit in 2021.

Schaeffler itself, in its annual report for 2022, announced its intention to sell its assets to Promavtoconsult.

According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, PromAvtoConsult LLC was registered in Moscow in early September 2022. The company specializes in consulting on commercial issues, market research, as well as in the trade of automotive parts, components and accessories. From the moment of registration until the end of October 2023, Roman Vovk was the head and beneficiary of the company. Now he is the beneficiary and CEO of NN-Invest JSC, registered a year ago in Moscow, with a specialization similar to Promavtoconsult. Alexander Gorlov became the owner and CEO of Promavtoconsult at the end of October.

Reuters reported in the spring of this year that an Austrian businessman, member of the supervisory board of Porsche Siegfried Wolf, who is known in Russia for his work in the GAZ group, may become a potential buyer of Schaeffler's Russian business.

The German magazine Der Spiegel reported in April that Wolf had written a letter to Vladimir Putin, in which he allegedly suggested how the production facilities of Volkswagen and the GAZ group could be used to resume production of Skoda cars and "revive the legendary Russian Volga brand." According to the businessman's plan, production of the Rapid model could be started in Kaluga, and then the production of Octavia, Kodiaq and Karoq could be launched in Nizhny Novgorod. To do this, it is necessary to significantly change the appearance of the cars using the "characteristic features" of the Volga and Pobeda models.

As the publication noted, Wolf wrote in his message that the PromAvtoConsult company should deal with the proposed production program. It was also noted that the businessman asked the Russian authorities for a loan of 60 billion rubles for the implementation of the project and reached "agreement in principle" with VW's top managers.

At the same time, VW and Porsche stated that they knew nothing about Wolf's letter.