FAS approves EFKO Group's request to acquire Togliatti Food Processing Plant

BELGOROD. Feb 12 (Interfax) - The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has approved EFKO Group's request to acquire Togliatti Food Processing Plant LLC (TFPP), the service said.

"The agency reviewed the request from JSC EFKO Food Products for approval to acquire 100% of the shares in TFPP LLC's charter capital. The agency believes that the deal will not lead to a restriction of competition in the packaged refined sunflower oil market," the FAS said.

According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Togliatti Food Processing Plant LLC was registered in September 2020. As of July 11, 2024, the company's owner is Sergei Drozd, whose stake is pledged to Russian Agricultural Bank.

It was previously reported that EFKO was planning to modernize the TFPP and build a river dock on the Volga to improve transport infrastructure for supplying raw materials via the Volga-Don river basin and to export finished products to the Caspian and Mediterranean regions. Investment in the project will amount to 11 billion rubles. Thanks to modernization, TFPP's processing capacity will increase 1.5-fold to 3,000 tonnes of oilseeds per day.

It was also reported that the first stage of the TFPP was launched in the Togliatti Special Economic Zone in September 2023. The plant was built in one and a half years, with investment in the first stage totaling 15 billion rubles. The first stage's total capacity for oil processing and packaging reached 250,000 tonnes per year. The plant's total designed capacity is 600,000 tonnes of oilseeds per year, including sunflower, rapeseed and flax.

EFKO specializes in processing oilseeds (sunflower, soybeans and rapeseed) and producing bottled oils, fats and margarines, mayonnaise and ketchup. The company's production facilities, located in the Belgorod, Voronezh, Lipetsk and Sverdlovsk regions, Krasnodar Territory and Kazakhstan, have a processing capacity of over 4.5 million tonnes of oilseeds annually.

The group's annual turnover exceeds 275 billion rubles.