Since 2008, Aircraft Industries, a manufacturer of civil aircraft from Kunovice in the Uherské Hradiště region, has been controlled by rich Russian oligarchs from the UGMK group – Iskander Machmudov and Andrej Kozicyn. Now, under the weight of anti-Russian sanctions, this is to change. According to the List of Reports, the company’s management announced at a meeting with employees today that the Czech company Omnipol will become the new owner. List News information obtained directly from the company’s employees, awaiting official confirmation.
The editors approached CEO Ilona Plšková, who has not yet responded to the inquiry.
This is the first similar case where a major Czech industrial company changes owners in the context of the war in Ukraine.
The company got into an existential threat. It lost the key Russian market, where most aircraft went. The last L-410 machine was exported by the company in a disassembled state on March 21, when it was still possible in exceptional cases. However, a strict pan-European ban on the export of similar technologies to Russia has been in place since March 28. The company’s management has announced that it is looking for new markets. There is talk of the possibility of exporting to the Philippines or Kazakhstan.
In the meantime, however, another blow hit the company. As Seznam Zprávy recently informed, the Kunovice manufacturer of civil aircraft also lost subcontracting of a key part of aircraft – engines.
The American manufacturer GE Aviation Turboprop justified the suspension of supplies precisely due to trade restrictions in connection with the war in Ukraine. It is not just about exports to Russia, but also that all companies with Russian owners are to be cut off from subsidies, public procurement and investment incentives according to the decision of the European Union.
The trade unions in the Kunovice company also began to talk about the fact that the only way out of the crisis is through a change of owners. “The unions and the company’s management are doing everything to keep the company running. That means one thing – it must not have a Russian owner, “said union leader Josef Mikula, a member of the supervisory board who is the only Czech representative in the company’s governing bodies at the beginning of April.
The Russian mining and metallurgical holding UGMK, headed by the leading oligarch Iskander Machmudov, joined the Kunovice factory in 2008, when it acquired 51 percent of the shares from Czech owners. The factory was fully taken over by the Russians in 2013. At the very end of 2018, there was a formal change, when UGMK was replaced as the sole shareholder by another Russian company, Ostov.
Andrej Kozicyn, a longtime close colleague of Iskander Machmudov, is mentioned as its final owner. The reason for this change could be that Machmudov was then included in the American “blacklist” of people connected to the Kremlin. Machmudov and Kozicyn are not yet on the current European sanctions list.
