Miller Magazine Issue: 113 May 2019

20 NEWS MAY 2019 Tornum acquires Mundus Maskin AB Russia’s biggest grain freight operator postpones share sale Tornum AB has acquired all the shares in Mundus Maskin AB, a Swedish supplier of grain equipment, pri- marily for Swedish agriculture and its industry. “Mun- dus has been a company that has been on Tornum’s acquisition wish list for a long time since we have seen a good complement to the Tornum Group, both market and product-wise”, says Tornum’s CEO Per Larsson. Over the years, Mundus has developed its own and highly acclaimed energy optimized drying control, NMC (Natural Moisture Control), a process control that is quite right in time. In short, this means that the PLC-controlled process system dries, monitors and ma- intains the grain with the least possible energy con- sumption, while the NMC system secures the highest quality of the raw material. The NMC control complements Tornum’s own plant control and its drying control IDC very well. Both com- panies can offer the control that suits every individual project and customer in the best possible way. “We saw Tornum AB as a long-term and value-cre- ating buyer of the company and we are fully convin- ced that it will be extremely positive for both the com- pany’s employees and for the company’s customers”, says Mundus former owner Jens Lundgren. “Tornum and Mundus will both have a broader product portfolio and an even larger market presence, as well as further excellence that strengthens the companies’ market-lea- ding position in Sweden”, concludes Per Larsson. Russian rail operator RusTransCom, specialising on transportation of grain, mineral fertilisers, and timber, has postponed its plans to hold an IPO, the company said in a statement. Previously the com- pany unveiled its plans to hold an IPO at the Lon- don Stock Exchange and hopes to raise $300mn, which would make the first IPO of a Russian com- pany in almost two years on the LSE. Since the beginning of 2019 there have been a number of deals carried out on Russian equity mar- ket, after no deals since August 2018. However, the postponement of the SPO of meat major Cherkizovo, and now the IPO of RusTransCom, brings first slips to the trend. While Cherkizovo reportedly could not rai- se enough bids at the price it set, RusTransCom claims to have “received several proposals regarding private equity transactions, which are better aligned with the Group’s development strategy,” the company said in a statement. Molesto Investments of Konstantin Sint- sov and Konstantin Zasov that together hold 95.7% in the freight operator planned to offer part of RusTrans- Com shares. RusTransCom operates 68,000 gondolas, more than half of which for the transportation of grain. In 2018 the company transported 60.7mn tonnes of grain, made revenues of RUB51.5bn, net profit of RU- B11.6bn. INTELLINEWS