The privately held Sibur Holding, Eastern Europe’s largest petrochemical company, is making headlines this week as owners Gennady Timchenko and Leonid Mikhelson continue to diversify Sibur’s public offerings worldwide. The businessmen’s diversification initiative kicked off amidst talks of an initial public offering (IPO) of the company that began over a year ago, according to reports by Bloomberg. Russia is touted as a “haven” for chemical production given the surplus of “cheap feedstock from western Siberia,” per Bloomberg.
With the world’s population expanding and slated to reach an unmanageable level by 2050, wherein starvation and world hunger run rampant, large companies like Sibur understand that this growth increases the demand for polymers—materials used in cars, bottles, an construction. Sibur is expanding its operations to include office locations in Kiev, Istanbul, China, and India, according to company representatives, and capture emerging market shares in these regions.
Gennady Timchenko, also a majority shareholder of Novatek along with Leonid Mikhelson, said he supports Sibur’s current development strategy. “Sibur is one of Russia’s fastest-growing companies,” Gennady Timchenko told news sources. “Sibur’s management team is highly qualified for the job.”
Fertilizer and tire production are at the heart of Sibur’s business. Gennady Timchenko and Leonid Mikhelson’s initiatives to drive the company into more diverse markets will only accelerate Sibur’s chances for going public in the near future. Sibur is close to securing buyers for fertilizer and tire units and turning to “specialty chemicals” to accelerate growth, with deals scheduled to be announced by the end of 2011.
With Gennady Timchenko at Leonid Mikhelson at the helm of Sibur, the company should have no trouble securing partners to move into diversified markets and enter the public markets.