The S7 Group has acquired the Berdsk Electromechanical Plant (BEMZ) to manufacture, test, and certify aircraft spare parts, according to Vasily Yurchenko, CEO of BEMZ, as reported to the Russian news agency TASS.
«The S7 Group has several companies with different competencies in fleet repair and maintenance. BEMZ is necessary for the group to produce, test, and certify the missing parts. In the near future, an investment and technical re-equipment program for the company will begin,» said the CEO.
S7 subsidiaries consolidated more than 82% of BEMZ shares in March. Specifically, 59.52% of the authorized participation was acquired by Sergey Savchenkov, who from 2020 to 2021 led S7 Space, a company dedicated to the development of space technologies.
Another 22.66% belongs to Engineering LLC, a company co-owned by Vladislav Filev, a member of S7’s board of directors. Vasily Yurchenko, the former governor of the Novosibirsk region, was appointed CEO of BEMZ in March.
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JSC Berdsk Electromechanical Plant is a machinery construction company that has been operating since 1959. The plant’s priority areas are manufacturing products for the defense complex, space and rocket industry, aviation, and civilian electromechanical products.
Following the invasion of Ukraine and consequent Western sanctions on Russia, airlines in this country could no longer access spare parts from traditional suppliers such as Boeing, Airbus, and Embraer.
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Therefore, the alternative to keep the planes in flying condition was to cannibalize other aircraft of the same model or manufacture their own parts, as S7 will do.
