MOSCOU (Reuters) - Le marché automobile russe, qui semblait bien parti pour devenir le plus important d'Europe, est rattrapé à son tour par la crise financière mondiale même s'il échappe toujours pour l'heure à une stagnation.

Certains des plus grands constructeurs mondiaux ont dévoilé, pas plus tard qu'il y a deux mois, des plans ambitieux pour augmenter de plusieurs dizaines de milliers leurs ventes de voitures cette année en Russie, mais sont maintenant contraints de revoir en baisse leurs prévisions de croissance.

Les concessionnaires russes ont toutefois constaté une forte demande en octobre, les automobilistes voulant à tout prix dépenser leur épargne dans quelque chose de concret.

Le traumatisme de l'effondrement du rouble, pendant la crise financière de 1998, est toujours très présent dans l'esprit des Russes, et nombre d'entre eux préfèrent cette fois dépenser leurs économies par anticipation pour ne pas courir le risque d'une nouvelle dévaluation.

Mais ces achats cash ne suffiront pas à alimenter une croissance durable sur un marché dont les fondamentaux, jusqu'ici très prometteurs, peuvent être remis en question par la crise financière et la menace d'une récession.

"Nul toute que tout le monde va devoir revoir ses objectifs de ventes", commente Ivan Bonchev, analyste chez Ernst & Young.

VERS UNE CROISSANCE TROIS FOIS INFÉRIEURE CETTE ANNÉE

Comme sur les autres marchés automobiles, le tarissement du crédit affecte les crédits auto en Russie, certains établissements ayant purement et simplement cessé d'accorder des prêts. La crise des financements a également entraîné la suspension de projets de chantiers à travers tout le pays, grippant la demande en poids-lourds et autres utilitaires.

Le principal constructeur russe d'utilitaires légers, GAZ Group, a dû se résoudre à quatre jours de chômage technique ce mois-ci en raison d'une chute de 10% des ventes de sa fourgonnette GAZelle, tandis que le constructeur de camions industriels Kamaz a annoncé son intention de réduire de 10% ses effectifs à cause de la crise.

"Nous n'allons plus connaître le type de croissance que nous avons eue ces trois dernières années. Celle-ci constituait une anomalie", a déclaré à Reuters Boris Aliochine, président du premier constructeur automobile russe AvtoVAZ. "Maintenant, même une croissance de quelques pour cents serait normale."

Selon l'Association des entreprises européennes, la croissance des ventes de voitures étrangères en Russie a atteint 20% sur une base annualisée en août, et 22% en septembre, deux fois moins que le boom de 40% observé l'an dernier.

"Nous n'avons plus de peine à suivre une demande trop forte (...) il y a moins d'activité (...) chez les concessionnaires", souligne à son tour Olga Sergueïeva, un représentant de la division russe de Renault.

Rolf, la première chaîne russe de concessionnaires, spécialisée dans la distribution de la marque Mitsubishi, a réduit les prix de l'ensemble de sa gamme le 10 octobre face à une chute de la demande - de 19% en août puis de 25% en septembre.

La moitié des voitures achetées cet été - avant la brusque aggravation de la crise financière - l'ont été à crédit tandis que la moitié des utilitaires et camions ont été acquis en location-vente, selon Bonchev. Il ajoute qu'on est maintenant sans doute tombé à 30%, voire moins.

Il en déduit que la croissance du marché automobile russe cette année ne dépassera pas les 20%, soit trois fois moins qu'en 2007 (+60% à 2,76 millions de voitures pour 53,4 milliards de dollars en valeur).

"L'an prochain, nous anticipons un taux de croissance de 5% pour le marché automobile", estime même Sergueï Soloviov, directeur financier de l'un des principaux concessionnaires du pays, Incom-Auto.

 
SOURCE: Reuters -- 23/10/2008 par Anton Doroshev
Version française Gilles Guillaume

According to Russia’s Interfax news service, construction work on Pirelli’s tyre factory in Togliatti will begin in March 2009. This announcement was apparently made by Vladislav Kapustin, head of the Samara region's Industry, Energy and Technology Ministry, at a press conference during the opening of an automotive industry trade show in Togliatti.

Automotive logistics company Gefco is to invest heavily in expanding its operations in Central and Eastern Europe. Chairman and chief executive Yves Fargues hinted last week that acquisitions are in the pipeline, and pointed to Turkey as one of the target countries, being the “natural gateway where East meets West”.

Fargues said he is confident the downturn affecting western economies will not affect the business’ growth plans, nor its target of achieving a 4.7 billion euro turnover by 2012. “We’ll be able to adapt to any downturn situation. It is our position in the market that is most important to us, not just our sales numbers.”

Gefco, which is part of the Peugeot Citroen group, expects to be achieving 40 per cent annual growth by 2012, with a ten per cent operating margin.

Port infrastructure expansion is also on the cards, with particular focus on strengthening positions in the Baltic and Black Seas. This will help provide direct access to Russia, a country seen as pivotal to its ongoing growth strategy.

One of the flagship projects for this year is the export of new vehicles produced in China to Russia. Plans are in motion to develop rail networks in these areas, because neither country has enough road support. Fargues also outlined railroad development opportunities in Latvia and Kazakhstan.

Gefco is also planning to expand its offering in areas outside of automotive such as retail and electronics.

SOURCE: http://www.logisticsmanager.com
Published: 07 October 2008  02:11 PM
 

Divestment in Auto-Parts Maker Shows How Financial Turmoil, Stock Free Fall Hit the Country's Wealthy Power Brokers

MOSCOW -- One of Russia's billionaire tycoons, Oleg Deripaska, gave up a showcase Western acquisition to creditors, in the first public example of how the global credit crisis is squeezing some of the country's wealthiest and most powerful men.

Mr. Deripaska, who controls aluminum giant UC Rusal and auto company OAO Gaz, has holdings that span energy, construction and banking. On Friday, his holding company confirmed turning over to creditors his 20% stake in the Canadian auto-parts maker Magna International Inc.

A year ago, he announced a strategic partnership with Magna and bought the stake for $1.4 billion, using loans collateralized by the shares to fund the deal. But the shares have fallen in value because of weakness in the global auto industry.

The move came as Russian share prices dropped sharply Friday despite a nearly $200 billion Kremlin rescue package. Battered by falling oil prices and global instability, Russia's dollar-denominated RTS index fell 7.1%. It closed just above the lows seen in mid-September, when spiraling declines led the authorities to shut the markets for more than two days as they hammered out the bailout plan.

Bankers and analysts say that like in many Western countries, the massive injections of cash into the banking system aren't being lent out into the rest of the economy because of persistent fears about widening credit problems. As a result, Russia's once-torrid growth is beginning to sputter. Curtailed lending has cut into booming auto sales and mortgages and starved businesses of credit.

Local and foreign companies have bet heavily on continued growth in Russia, and the Kremlin depends on rising living standards for public support. In recent years, Russia's biggest companies and banks, some controlled by its billionaire tycoons, have grown dependent on low-cost funding from overseas, running up almost $500 billion in foreign debt.

"These guys are leveraged in every place they can be leveraged," said one senior Western banker. Many, like Mr. Deripaska, used their equity stakes as collateral for loans. As the value of those stakes has dropped, creditors have demanded more cash or equity. New loans have become much harder to get.

Konstantin Panin, a spokesman for Basic Element, Mr. Deripaska's holding company, said in an email that turning over the Magna shares "is not a sign of financial distress."

"Like all other companies, we are not immune from the crisis," he said. "The current overall level of debt is acceptable, but we are of course working to optimize the credit portfolio," he added, declining to elaborate. Erik Eberhardson, head of the auto unit in Mr. Deripaska's empire, said the company decided to focus on the Russia market and that cooperation with Magna there will continue. Rusal, Mr. Deripaska's aluminum company, with $14 billion in debt, says it hasn't faced margin calls or other financial problems.

One of Russia's wealthiest men, Mr. Deripaska has been dogged by lawsuits from former partners alleging he cheated them out of their stakes, charges he vehemently denies. The U.S. government has canceled his entry visa because of its concern about alleged links to criminal activity, which he also denies.

Mr. Deripaska's isn't the only Russian company to feel the chill in the global markets. State oil company OAO Rosneft was hit with margin calls last month on a $2.35 billion loan it had negotiated in July, secured with its own stock. Rosneft's shares are down over 50% since July, and the company had to contribute hundreds of millions in cash and additional shares to rebuild its collateral, according to people familiar with the situation.

Part of the Kremlin's $200 billion rescue plan is $50 billion offered to Russian companies to refinance foreign loans with a state-owned bank, but at painfully high interest rates. That program, as well as other parts of the rescue plan, are expected to be approved by parliament next week.

But for the moment, credit has tightened sharply, hurting companies and consumers, bankers and analysts say. Auto sales, about half of which are done on credit, slowed sharply in August and September, running well below the 50% annual growth seen in previous months, according to industry officials.

"The party's over," said Mr. Eberhardson. "This is a time in which a lot of people are going to have problems."

SOURCE : Wall Street Journal – Oct 4, 2008

By GREGORY L.WHITE

Mark-to-market accounting has been blamed for being the catalyst, or even the cause, of the recent financial crisis. According to this argument, the extension of mark-to-market – the valuation of assets at putative market prices – to all credit portfolios in trading books made earnings look worse than they were and forced banks to seek dilutive capital injections. Mark-to-market, this argument goes, should be renounced in favour of valuing portfolios at their historical cost.

We do not endorse this view in any way and we firmly believe that measuring a bank’s trading portfolio at “fair value” is the only possible means of guaranteeing transparency and discipline.

Although we are firm believers in the fair value principle, we are strongly opposed to the way it is applied during a crisis. In these circumstances, market value is no longer fair value, in large part because of the much-reduced volume of transactions. Arbitrageurs – including banks’ own trading desks and hedge funds – withdraw from the trades that normally deal with the temporary differences that naturally arise between the market price of an instrument and its intrinsic value.

Market prices are hence squeezed by a “crisis discount” as investors also avoid all credit assets, regardless of intrinsic quality.

By incorporating this “reverse convenience yield” into valuation, accounting takes on a pro-cyclical dimension – exaggerating the peaks and troughs of the business cycle – which runs contrary to its objective of reliability, neutrality and unbiased presentation of asset values and performance. Banks artificially mark down earnings, putting pressure on capital and forcing them either to raise new capital or to sell off assets.

We believe that earnings should be affected only by valuation inputs attributable to the rise in the probability of default, the fall in recovery rate (the proportion of an asset’s value that can be recovered in the event of a default) or the increased default correlation between borrowers (where several borrowers default at the same time). The temporary “crisis discount” should be disclosed but should not affect earnings.

We propose an “upgraded fair value” model for serious crises, to stop the pro-cyclical effects of mark-to-market and to allow trading assets to be measured consistently with their intrinsic values.

Under our proposal, as soon as the accounting regulator in the country concerned considers the “crisis discount” abnormally high, banks would be required to discontinue mark-to-market measurements of credit assets in their trading books that no longer represented fair value.

They would switch to a fair value measurement based on a “mark-to-model” approach using initial parameters set by the regulator, chiefly probabilities of default and recovery rates. These data would be established using fundamental analysis of assets’ credit quality, eliminating any “crisis discount”.

This would not apply to impaired assets or structured instruments whose underlying assets were impaired, such as “subprime” assets.

This approach obviously creates an accounting gain, equal to the difference between the “upgraded fair value” and the market price. We recommend recording this gain in the income statement and disclosing details of the adjustment in the notes. These gains would correct the negative impact of any losses already recognised. The earlier the regulator acts, the less significant the adjustment to income.

Our proposed technique should help to stimulate the re-emergence of arbitrageurs, which would reduce the “crisis discount”. Once the crisis is over, and credit spreads once again approximate credit quality, the regulator would decide to resume mark-to-market practices. This would not create any significant accounting impact, because “upgraded fair value” prices would then be in line with market prices. Appropriate disclosure would be required to avoid abuse or accounting arbitrage.

The “automatic stability” proposal would require consultation between banking supervisors, accounting regulators and central banks. Rating agencies, which we would like to see more strongly supervised, could help to estimate the crisis spreads to be fixed by the regulator.

We are convinced that such a system would have reduced the pro-cyclical impacts of international financial reporting standards without modifying the fair value principle that we continue to support, and would probably have reduced the level of monetary intervention by central banks.

It is important, however, that the fair value principle be limited to the trading book and available-for-sale port folios. Any extension to non-trading positions, either within the banking book or insurers’ balance sheets, would be tantamount to accepting that crises similar to the recent one could occur on a wider basis.

Jean-François Lepetit is chairman of the Conseil National de la Comptabilité (France’s national accounting board). Etienne Boris is a partner at PwC. Didier Marteau is a professor at ESCP-EAP European School of Man agement. Philippe Bordenave, chief financial officer at BNP Paribas, also contributed to this article.

This text represents the views of its authors only, and not necessarily those of their companies or institutions.

By Jean-François Lepetit, Etienne Boris and Didier Marteau

Published: July 28 2008 19:10 | Last updated: July 28 2008 21:30