Dmitry Pumpyanskiy, a pipe metallurgical company (TMK), "is considering a number of strategic projects" with regard to his American division TMK IPSCO, and in this connection asks to withdraw from him guarantees for the Group's Eurobonds for $ 500 million. Previously, TMK considered an IPO of the division or a partial sale of its assets, now the company assures that "production assets will not be sold." It's about preparing for an IPO, analysts say.

TMK on Wednesday asked holders of Eurobonds to pay $ 500 million in 2020 to release the American division of the company - IPSCO Tubulars Inc (TMK IPSCO) - from the obligations on guarantees within the issuance. For this group will pay a premium of $ 6.25 for every $ 1 thousand of face value of securities. TMK continues to consider a "number of strategic projects" for the division and its exemption from bond guarantees "will provide flexibility in choosing the optimal strategy aimed at maximizing the value of IPSCO Tubulars as an asset for TMK," the group said. It also notes that "TMK intends to use the vast majority of the proceeds it will receive from the implementation of any of these strategic projects, to pay off debt equivalent to or higher in terms of level relative to the bonds." The net debt of TMK at the end of June was $ 2.56 billion (3.9 EBITDA for the last 12 months).

TMK IPSCO includes 12 enterprises with a capacity of 1.39 million tons of pipes per year, until 2015 the division provided TMK with about a fifth of its revenue. Since 2015, its performance began to deteriorate amid lower oil prices and a drop in drilling volumes, but in 2017, the division again went into EBITDA ($ 30 million in the first half of the year against a loss of $ 54 million a year earlier), sales for the year rose to year in 2,9 times, up to 402 thousand tons. In May, Vladimir Shmatovich, deputy general director for strategy and development of TMK, in a conversation with Kommersant noted that the company is already restarting the factories of the American division suspended in 2015-2016, and in addition to increasing production in the US by more than half by 2016, up to 300 thousand tons of pipes from Russia and Romania. In the third quarter, the growth rate of the North American market slowed: TMK IPSCO shipments in the nine months amounted to 575,000 tonnes - no more than three times, but twice as much as in January-September 2016. "The number of drilling rigs has stabilized after the balance of oil prices, but oil and gas companies (in the US and Canada - Kommersant) continue to actively develop the fields and increase purchases of pipe products," TMK noted in mid-October.

In the autumn of 2014, TMK considered the possibility of an IPO of the American division, which was later officially discussed in the company, and when the situation on the market deteriorated, the pipe company discussed the partial sale of assets in the United States, Kommersant sources said. In early October, TMK CEO Alexander Shiryaev, answering questions about the division's IPO, noted that the company "never said that this topic was closed." "We do not rule out anything, everything will depend on the specific market situation, on how the market will grow. We need to give some time to understand the stability of the market, we sell a million tons of pipes in the US, that's a lot, "said the top manager.

On Wednesday, TMK told Kommersant that they "can not give specific comments" to questions about the prospects for M & A deals and the public offering of TMK IPSCO securities, but they assured that "production assets will not be sold." Analysts tend to believe that it is a question of preparing for an IPO. TMK has never refused an IPO division, and now is a good time to think about it: oil prices are at two-year highs, pipeline capacity for the oil and gas sector is 100% loaded, the pipe market in the US is on the upswing, says Andrei Lobazov from Aton . With the forecast annual EBITDA of the US division of TMK at $ 100 million and the absence of debt at the level of the TMK IPSCO itself, the company can be valued in a wide range of $ 1-1.7 billion, Oleg Petropavlovskiy from BCS believes. At the same time, the capitalization of all TMK yesterday was about $ 1.3 billion.