Amtel-Vredestein buys 40 tyre retail stores in Russia

Moscow -- Amtel-Vredestein has announced that it has agreed to buy approximately 40 retail and service centers across Russia. In particular, Amtel will acquire retail and service centers in St. Petersburg, Perm and Kemerovo.

In September 2005 the Company signed simultaneous agreements to acquire several large-scale retail channels, "Koleso", "Rosshina" and "UVL Plus"; these transactions are now completed.

Acquisition of distribution centers in regions of Russia which offer high growth potential is a logical step in achieving the Company's ambition to establish a proprietary retail business.

AV has already announced its plans to create premium and mid-market brands on the basis of retail centres it plans to either acquire or to build. Geographically, the Company intends to promote these brands not only in the Moscow region and Russia, but also to expand further.

"Large proprietary distribution network is a business which offers high margins and its formation is an important step in achieving the Company's long-term strategic objective of growing it's profitability and increasing shareholders value", stated Alexey Gurin, the General Director of Amtel-Vredestein. "To implement this, we are now reorganising our business from that focused exclusively on production to that focused on market. Specifically, with the aid of the latest technological advances and the valuable management expertise brought into the group with the acquisition of the Dutch company Vredestein Banden BV, we are now concentrating on the production of high margin products such as premium and mid-range tyres."