Pirelli seeking to buy tyre plant in Russia

ERJ staff report (DS)

Milan, Italy -- Pirelli is seeking to buy a plant in Russia. Francesco Gori, speaking at Pirelli's Q3 earnings conference call said, "and we are in touch to buy an existing plant that is quite new. We don't know the timing, it's quite a complex transaction, but we believe that within the first six months of next year we should be able to finalize the deal."

Amtel NV is known to be selling its assets in the wake of bankruptcy proceedings, and owns a modern plant in Voronezh, for which the mixing room still has to be bult. Pirelli has not made any comment about the Voronezh plant specifically; this is pure speculation. However no other modern plant is known to be for sale in Russia.

Gori also confirmed plans to build a truck tyre plant in Russia on a green field site, "The second investment is a greenfield plant for truck tires; we are finalizing all the bureaucratic assessments and we believe we will not start building the plant before second half of next year. So, that's the plant in Russia and we expect the market in Russia to recover at the end of 2010, beginning of 2011, and so trying to be ready to be… to produce in Russia."