(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.
“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.”
finance.yahoo.com/news/yellen-asked-probe-security-issues-100000305.html