Russians increase ownership of Buhler Industries

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This article was published 30/12/2021 (1436 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Russian agricultural equipment manufacturer, Combine Factory Rostselmash Ltd., has doubled down on its majority stake in Buhler Industries buying up most of the rest of the shares from company namesake, John Buhler.

Rostselmash acquired approximately four million shares from John Buhler’s holding company, Highland Park Financial, for approximately at $3.00 per share for a total price of $12,251,658.

Rostselmash acquired 80 per cent of Buhler in 2007 and now owns 96.7 per cent of the outstanding shares of the company.

Buhler Industries has been and continues to be a publicly traded company, and the company’s chief financial officer, Willy Janzen, said there are no plans to de-list the shares despite the fact there are very few left in the public float.

“We don’t have to be de-listed and there are no discussions regarding de-listing,” said Janzen.

The increased Russian ownership of Buhler Industries, makers of the Versatile tractor among many other product lines, is not expected to have much impact in the marketplace.

John Schmeiser, the CEO of Western Equipment Dealers Association (WEDA), said while there might have been a few raised eyebrows when Rostselmash made its original investment in Buhler in 2007, it is less of a shock today.

“The response from dealers is that this is not really a surprise,” Schmeiser said. “It does make sense from a control and operational perspective.”

The industry has changed substantially over the past several years and Schmeiser said national boundaries and equipment nationalities are not a big thing anymore.

“What it really comes down to is people,” he said.

And in that regard Buhler Industries and the Versatile brand have made somewhat of a comeback.

In 2017 WEDA’s annual survey on dealer-manufacturer relationship Versatile was near the bottom of the pack, rated very poorly by dealers on overall satisfaction with performance, products and leadership.

But Schmeiser said in the 2021 edition of the annual survey, Versatile was one of the highest-rated tractor manufacturers.

“The company has focused on improving its relationship with dealers and they have been successful,” he said. “It is more about the people in senior leadership than ownership of the company.”

Schmeiser said Versatile continues to be a solid brand among Canadian dealers and customers continue to see a lot of value in the brand.

“One of the advantages with that product is that it’s very price competitive to what else is in the market,” he said.

Janzen said there was nothing significant to the timing of the purchase of Buhler’s shares.

Prior to the transaction neither Rostselmash nor Buhler were trading their shares and Janzen suggested that this latest transaction will likely not alter the recent history of trading volumes.

Buhler Industries’ busiest trading day in the last five years was 11,000 shares.

The Russian company was best known for its combines when it originally purchased the majority stake in Buhler Industries.

There were suggestions after 2007 that the company would do some manufacturing of its combines — which have brand names including Rostselmash, Torum, Acros and Vector — in Winnipeg or at other Buhler factories in North America but that has not occurred.

It does make tractors in Russia that do incorporate design elements of Buhler Industries’ Versatile tractors, but are branded Rostselmash in Russia and the Eastern European markets.

Rostselmash is a huge presence in the Russian and Eastern European agricultural equipment market.

The company has 13 production facilities and is in the process of building a $100-million tractor plant in Rostov-on-Don, near the southern part of the border with Ukraine.

It will be the first tractor plant built in post-Soviet Russia.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca