OREANDA-NEWS. Bluecone Limited, a subsidiary of Severstal, upped its share of Irish company Celtic Resources Holdings from 22% to 26.6%. Celtic extracts gold, copper and molybdenum in Kazakhstan and Russia. A representative of Severstal Resource (manages mining assets of Severstal), Sergei Loktionov noted that increase of portfolio occurred due to purchase of shares off a private company, at the same time refusing to comment on the deal value, the press-service of Veles Capital, an investment company, informs.

Quotes of Celtic Resources Holdings at LSE dropped after the information of its purchase by Severstal appeared. To remind, in early December 2007 Severstal finalized a deal on purchase of 22% of Celtic, and virtually a few weeks later a news appeared that Irish gold miner received a message from undisclosed company, which may lead to company’s absorption.

In the view of Veles Capital experts, the acquisition is positive for Severstal, as it secures a horizontal diversification of the business and hence the income growth. At the same time a lot is determined by price of purchase, in particular the price of already purchased blocking interest. "In other words, the higher the price to Severstal, the less economic benefit of the deal in question," the experts stress.