Yellen Asked to Probe Security Issues in Ammunition Maker’s Sale

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(Bloomberg) — Representative Clay Higgins, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, has asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to “thoroughly review national security concerns” in the proposed sale of a US ammunition manufacturer to a firm based in the Czech Republic.

The concerns involve the sale of Vista Outdoor’s ammunition business to the holding company Czechoslovak Group, or CSG, which Higgins said would weaken national security if the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, or Cfius, approves the sale.

The Louisiana Republican said in a letter that the sale of Vista Sporting Products to CSG would result in the firm controlling “nearly 70% of production capacity for primers in the Western world.” Primers are the component of a bullet that ignites the charge, sending the projectile down the barrel of a pistol or rifle.

CSG acquired a 70% stake in Italian ammunition manufacturer Fiocchi Munizioni in 2022. Higgins cited Vista’s contracts to provide ammunition to the US Army, the FBI, the Secret Service, the Customs and Border Protection agency and local law enforcement agencies in his concerns about Vista’s ammunition business being sold to a foreign company.

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on March 4, Vista Outdoor, which also makes camping and sporting goods such as bike helmets and binoculars, disclosed that Cfius would need to clear the transaction. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment on the Higgins letter after normal business hours.

A complicating angle to the proposed sale: Higgins said the deal could jeopardize the US Army’s ability to procure ammunition from its Lake City Ammunition Plant in Independence, Missouri. The plant is owned by the military but managed by one of two manufacturers — Olin Corp.-owned Winchester or Vista and its predecessors — that have traded contracts for the work since the plant’s founding in 1941, according to Higgins.

Janet Yellen

Higgins said the deal also would leave police departments across the country “heavily reliant” on foreign providers of primers and ammunition.

“For these reasons, I request Cfius to carefully examine national security concerns of the proposed acquisition,” Higgins wrote in his letter to Yellen, adding that Cfius should also examine any “past or current relationship between CSG’s owners and foreign adversaries.” Higgins contended that CSG had “ties to Russia and China.”

Cfius is composed of a representatives from agencies  across the federal government but is convened by the Treasury, which chairs the committee.

MNC Capital Partners LP submitted on Monday a rival bid for the company at $37.50 per share, valuing both the consumer products and ammunition manufacturing divisions of Vista’s business at about $3 billion. MNC said its offer would not be subject to Cfius review.

In a letter to their employees, Vista executives said that a previous offer from MNC of $35 per share was “an inferior path to the one we’re on by selling” the ammunition business to CSG, “and is not in the best interest of our stockholders.”

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