Russian swordsman hired JP Morgan for the implementation of coal assets in the USA - Reuters

One of the largest mining companies in Russia Mechel, under the yoke of nine billion debts, hired the JP Morgan investment bank to sell its American assets. Reuters writes about this today.

In 2009, Mechel acquired Bluestone from private owners for $ 425 million and bought its shares from a number of independent shareholders. At the time of the transaction, its amount was estimated in the region of $ 800 million, including 135 million dollars of debts of the BlueStone itself.

According to Reuters, Sword already offered about half the initial value of assets.

In addition, it will be very difficult to sell a coal enterprise in America today, since a number of large mining companies in the USA put up many similar assets to the market, trying to reduce unprofitable capacities and increase profitability.

Mechel Bluestone was faced with overproduction in Asia and a fall in coal exports from the States. He was forced to leave in a simple at the end of last year due to an unfavorable market situation, but at the beginning of this year large production were restarted.

The Russian company seeks to reduce debts, which are already six times higher than the current value of assets acquired before 2008 in the wake of increasing demand for steel and coal.

Bluestone operates three mining complexes in West Virginia, producing mainly metallurgical coal for customers in the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia and South America.

In 2012, in accordance with his annual report, Bluestone sold 2 million tons of coking and energy coal. Approximately 70 percent of coking coal was shipped for export.