United Industrial Corporation (UIC) by Sergey Pugachev sells «Severnaya Verf» and Baltic factory of the state UIC. It needs funds to support Mezhprombank: without them, the bank will not be able to repay Eurobonds at 200 million euros, Fitch Ratings warned

Recently, Fitch Ratings downgraded the rating outlook of the International Industrial Bank (Mezhprombank) from "stable" to "negative". The agency is not certain that the bank will be able to pay 200 million euros on bonds (see the cutout) on July 6.

The main source of funds of Mezhprombank - unsecured loans in the Central Bank: they account for one third of its liabilities, it is the largest recipient of such loans (56% of unsecured loans in CB), Fitch notes.

"Without the support of a shareholder the bank's access to liquidity appears to be limited in the light of obviously low funds generation for the loan portfolio, as well as reduced opportunities of borrowings on capital markets and having fully used the bank limit on unsecured lending ," Fitch stated. The bank's management considers the support by Sergey Pugachev to be the main source of additional funds for the repayment of eurobonds and told the agency that they may be involved through the sale or pledge of assets belonging to UIC.

These assets — the shipbuilding «Severnaya Verf» and Baltic factory, which will be sold to the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC). Pugachev is negotiating the sale of controlling stakes in the both USC plants, the state-owned company is going to take a decision in the coming days, its employee announces.

Press secretary of USC Dmitry Morochenko confirmed the deal, noting that it is in accordance with the instruction given by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to USC, the transaction will be closed until June 20.

They rumored about the sale of "Severnaya Verf" and "Baltic Factory" USC for more than two years, but now the deal is indeed close, as a top manager of the defense enterprise confirmed. According to him,, a credit of a state-owned bank will be taken for the transaction. According to the USC employee, a state bank will buy the assets, and then resell it to USC. it gained control over the Amursky Shipyard last year according to such a scheme (with the participation of Sberbank).

Pugachev expects to earn $ 2 billion for both plants, a top manager of one of the USC companies says: this is the result of an independent evaluation ( he did not say who conducted it). USC will knock down the price, the corporate executive asserts: now there is an active auction - and the figures appearing there are "far from the billions of dollars." According to him, due to the money the bank will repay bonds (200 million euros) and part of the loan securities (total - 32 billion rubles)..

Mezhprombank representative assured that the bank performs and will perform its obligations, but he did not specify the resources.