S8 Capital Holding has completed the purchase of the Russian assets of the German Bosch in the city of Engels. As part of the deal, the holding received 100% control over factories for the production of spark plugs, power tools and a site for the production of heating boilers.
These are Robert Bosch Saratov LLC, Bosch Power Tools LLC and Bosch Heating Systems LLC. The changes have not yet been reflected in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.
S8 Capital promises to save jobs and step up production, Kommersant writes. Within six months after the completion of the transaction, the plants will be rebranded.
“The new assets, in addition to our existing businesses, will expand production and scientific and technological cooperation between industrial sites, increase the level of their localization, as a result, increasing the efficiency of the production capabilities of the S8 Capital holding,” said Torsten Schubert, Managing Director of S8 Capital.
A year ago, BV wrote that Chinese and Turkish companies were eyeing the factories. Bosch also includes another Engels enterprise – Euroradiators LLC (168 employees and 1.6 billion rubles of revenue in 2022), but its owner is different – the Dutch company Euroradiators Holding B.V.. Apparently, therefore, the company did not enter into the deal.
The main asset of Armen Sargsyan’s S8 Capital holding is the Stoloto lottery brand. Until 2018, there was also a company of the same name, which was renamed JSC TK Center. For 2023, it is the largest distributor of state lotteries in Russia, under this brand the lotteries “Russian Lotto” and “Sportloto” are distributed. As of September 2022, Stoloto had 70 thousand points of sale (8).
The holding also includes the online aggregators Strahovka.ru and Price.ru, the virtual mobile operator Next Mobile and the sports publication Sport 24.
Last year, S8 Capital began investing in industrial assets. In July 2022, the holding acquired the Russian business of the American elevator manufacturer Otis, gaining control of the company’s plant in St. Petersburg. The amount of the transaction could be 3 billion rubles. Production of elevators at the plant under the Meteor brand. Also associated with the holding, Industrial Assets C8 JSC signed an agreement to buy a stake in Continental, which owns a tire plant in Kaluga.
Help “BV”. Robert Bosch Saratov LLC in this form of ownership was registered in Engels in 2013, although the plant itself has existed since the early 90s. The number of employees at the end of 2022 is 893 people, the company’s revenue last year amounted to 3.6 billion rubles with a loss of 960 million rubles (5.9 billion rubles and a net profit of 242 million rubles a year earlier). The revenue of Bosch Power Tools LLC fell from 5.5 billion rubles to 3.1 billion rubles and showed a loss of 561 million rubles against a profit of 347 million rubles. The headcount at the end of 2022 was 432 people. Bosch Heating Systems LLC earned 2 billion rubles in 2022 – the same as a year earlier. But the loss increased from 260 million rubles to 338.9 million rubles. By the beginning of 2023, 271 people worked at the plant.