Lithuania's Viciunu grupe might complete sale of Kaliningrad plant by this week - reports

VILNIUS. April 9 (Interfax/BNS) - Lithuania's Viciunu grupe will complete the sale of its fish processing plant in Kaliningrad Region, Viciunai Rus LLC, this week, BNS reported.

The buyer might be acting on behalf of Unifrost, a major Russian importer of fish and seafood, Kommersant reported.

A source in the fish industry confirmed to Interfax that Unifrost is involved in the deal to buy Viciunai Rus. However, Viciunu grupe and Unifrost are not commenting on the possible deal.

"We are in the process of selling. We cannot comment on the progress and details of the process until it is completed. We rely on your patience and will certainly inform you," Viciunu grupe's head of marketing, Vilma Veverske told BNS.

"We must inform you that Unifrost LLC does not comment on any past, current or future deals of third parties," the company said in response to a request for comment from Interfax.

Viciunai Rus said in its financial statements for 2023 that it will soon have a new owner, but it did not name the buyer. "There are plans to change the sole participant in the company. The deal, which will lead to the establishment of ownership rights to an equity stake of 100% in the company, has been approved by the government commission for control over state investment in Russia. The protocol of the meeting is dated February 5, 2024," the company said in a memo. Viciunai Rus is now wholly owned by Viciunu grupe.

The document also said that a deal was in the works to cede rights to claims on the loan contracts and debt of Viciunai Rus and Estonia-based Viciunai Nordic AS totalling $29.4 million and 1.9 million euros to Ocean Group Management Company. No actions on these transactions had been completed as of the signing date of the financial statements (March 27, 2024), the company added.

As of December 31, 2023, Viciunai Rus owed 3 billion rubles to VTB , Gazprombank , Rosbank and Alfa Bank. The company received 703 million rubles in subsidies from the Kaliningrad regional government in 2023 for import substitution and job preservation.

Viciunai Rus, a resident of the special economic zone in Kaliningrad Region, is currently carrying out a project to modernize its production facilities. The amount of investment in the project was revised last September and is now expected to total 710 million rubles rather than the 1 billion rubles projected in November 2020. The company had 1,200 employees at the end of 2023.

The company said in its reporting that sanctions imposed against Russian businesses in 2022 have not had a significant impact on its production, but supply chains for feedstock have changed. Viciunai Rus increased sales by 11% to 18.213 billion rubles in 2023 and earned a net profit of 1.27 billion rubles for the year.

Kaliningrad Region's Agriculture Ministry said in December that Viciunai Rus produces more than 1,500 types of products, including breaded convenience foods, smoked mackerel, salmon and butterfish, canned herring, frozen shrimp and other sea food products. The company ships its products to the Russian market and also exports.

The company is now modernizing its two main production lines, which will expand capacity to 200 tonnes of finished product per week.

Viciunu grupe, which is owned by Kaunas Mayor Visvaldas Matijosaitis and his business partner Liudas Skierus, announced plans to sell its Russian business back in the spring of 2022, but this was a slow process.

Ocean Group was founded in St. Petersburg in June 2023 and its main business is equity and venture capital investment, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (USRLE). The USRLE does not name the company's owners. Kommersant reported sources as saying that the company might be acting on behalf of Unifrost.

Unifrost, according to its website, is a supplier of fish and other sea food. The company was incorporated in St. Petersburg in 2004 and has branches Moscow, Krasnodar, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok and Samara. Unifrost is wholly owned by Russian citizen Anna Romanova, the USRLE states.

Unifrost's net profit rose 30.3% to 1.82 billion rubles in 2023 on revenue up 50% to 32.27 billion rubles, according to its financial statements to Russian Accounting Standards.