Tkachev Agrocomplex might acquire top Russian sunflower oil producer Yug Rusi - paper

MOSCOW. Sept 4 (Interfax) - Russia's leading producer of sunflower oil, Yug Rusi might be acquired by a division of Tkachev Agrocomplex, the agribusiness group of former Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev, national daily Kommersant reported on Monday, citing sources with knowledge of the deal.

Kamil Muzafarov became CEO of the Yug Rusi Group's flagship companies MEZ Yug Rusi LLC and Yug Rusi LLC on August 30, replacing Dmitry Kislov, the son of group founder and owner Sergei Kislov, the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (USRLE) showed.

In July, Muzafarov established the firm Resurs LLC in Moscow, designating its core business as "holding company." This is the company that might buy Yug Rusi, the paper's sources said.

The USRLE showed that on July 20 100% of Resurs was pledged as collateral to Credit Bank of Moscow (CBM) and on July 21 Yug Rusi's stake in MEZ Yug Rusi was pledged as collateral to CBM.

Peregrine Capital managing director Dmitry Gabyshev said that Resurs is apparently "raising money from the bank, pledging shares as collateral, but since the shell company does not have assets, the bank is also getting shares in the entity being purchased as collateral."

Yug Rusi Group said the replacement of the CEO was due to the "regular rotation of management."

Tkachev Agrocomplex CEO Yevgeny Khvorostin, the group's press service and CBM did not respond to Kommersant's questions before publication. Resurs and Muzafarov could not be reached.

Yug Rusi has nine oil processing plants, elevators and a port terminal in the Azov-Black Sea basin. The group's brand portfolio includes Zolotaya Semechka, Zlato and Avedov, among others. Yug Rusi produced 12% of Russia's raw sunflower oil and 28% of the country's bottled sunflower oil in the 2021/2022 season, Rusagro said in a report. Yug Rusi was Russia's largest sunflower oil exporter last season, shipping more than 399,000 tonnes, Kommersant reported, citing data from market participants. The group also exports grain.

Tkachev Agrocomplex has in the past already been named as the beneficiary of transactions that involved entities with no formal ties to the group. For example, in 2022 a firm called Zemelny Rezerv LLC, which was owned by Yevgeny Svistul at the time, acquired the Russian agribusiness of the Czech Republic's PPF Group, while Yug Rusi sold farmland to a company called Agrotekhnologii LLC that was owned by Andrei Sheikin.

The paper, citing a source, said Yug Rusi might be valued at about 40 billion rubles before debt for the deal.