The Anti-Monopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) has allowed the international vertically integrated steel pipe producer Interpipe to create a joint venture with one of Europe’s leading producers of weldless pipes – Vallourec (France), – as well as for the latter to acquire a number of assets owned by Interpipe Limited.
According to the information from the AMCU, “a license has been granted to the company Vallourec Tubes S.A.S. (Boulogne-Billancourt, France) allowing it, through Vallourec Deutschland GmbH (Dusseldorf, Germany), to acquire certain assets belonging to Interpipe Limited (Nicosia, Cyprus), which enables it to carry out business activities in the marketing and sales of weldless steel pipes in the European Union”.
Apart from that, the Committee has “granted a license to Vallourec Tubes S.A.S. and Interpipe Limited for coordinated actions of enfocing the provisions of the agreement on the purchase of the European business signed on 28 July 2017 by Interpipe Limited, Interpipe Europe SA (Paradiso, Switzerland), Interpipe Central Trade GmbH (Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany) and Vallourec Deutschland GmbH (Dusseldorf, Germany), as well as of the shareholders’ agreement from 28 July 2017 signed by Vallourec Tubes S.A.S. and Interpipe Limited, for a period of 6 years.”
Interpipe is among the world’s top ten producers of weldless pipes, being the world’s third largest producer of solid railroad wheels in terms of volume. In 2017, Interpipe boosted sales of pipe and railroad goods by 35% compared to 2016, to 767,000 tons. This included the 31% increase in the sales of pipe products, to 595,000, and the 51% rise (to 172,000 tons) in the sales of railroad products – wheels, bandages, wheel sets and track centerlines.
The company currently owns five industrial assets: Interpipe Nyzhnyodniprovsky pipe mill, Interpipe Novomoskovsky pipe mill, Interpipe Nico-Tube, Dnepropetrovsky Vtormet and the Dniprostal steel-melting complex under the Interpipe Stal’ brand.
The end beneficiaries of Interpipe Ltd are the Ukrainian businessman Viktor Pinchuk and members of his family.
Vallourec (France) is one of the world’s leading producers of weldless steel pipes for the extraction of oil and gas, as well as for other industrial operations. The company currently employs 19 thousand workers. Its turnover in 2016 stood at €2,965 billion, while its net profit was recorded at €219 million.
