Russia car dealer selling stake to refinance loans
MOSCOW, Oct 20 (Reuters) - One of Russia's leading car dealers, Incom-Auto, will sell 30 percent of its share capital to raise money to refinance its debt as the credit crunch chokes off access to cash, its financial chief said on Monday.
"This (sale) is being carried out in order to raise capital during these hard times," Incom-Auto's director of finance Sergei Solovyov told Reuters, adding that the deal could be worth $70-100 million.
Car dealers have been among the hardest hit by the financial crisis, which has led banks to stop lending to them as well as to their clients.
Solovyov said that Inkom-Auto must refinance $40 million in loans by the end of this year, part of which it hopes will come from the share sale.
"Refinancing right now is a very difficult task for everyone," he added.
The private chain of dealerships, one of the three largest in Russia, specialises in the sale of Russian and Chinese-made cars and is controlled by its president, Dmitry Kozlovsky.
Solovyov declined to name the buyer of the stake, saying that the company was in talks with several potential investors. (Reporting by Anton Doroshev, writing by Simon Shuster; Editing by David Cowell)
