Agrocomplex them. N.I. Tkacheva acquired land and production in the Crimea

The Crimean agricultural holding "Friendship of Peoples" became the property of JSC "Firm" Agrocomplex im. N.I. Tkachev". Thus, now the company of the former Russian Minister of Agriculture Alexander Tkachev has become the official owner of the business on the peninsula after it was annexed to the Russian Federation.

Until 2017, the assets of APH "Friendship of Peoples", which manages 20,000 hectares of land in Crimea, were part of the large Ukrainian corporation "Myronivsky Hliboproduct" (MHP) Yuri Kosyuk. The editors learned about the transaction of one of the Agrocomplex companies from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (EGRLE) and received additional data from two sources involved in the domestic agro-industrial complex.

In 2017, MHP sold its Crimean assets to the Moscow management company Optima-Finance for $77.7 million. Its beneficiary is considered to be businessman Boris Vaninsky, who was previously a member of the top management of the petrochemical Sibur Holding, as well as a staff member of Gazprom and Zarubezhneft.

APH "Friendship of Peoples" (TM "Ryaba Krymskaya") is a diversified business. The holding has pig breeding complexes for 25.5 thousand heads, a MEAT processing plant producing 50 tons of sausages and semi-finished meat products per day, the Crimean Fruit Company (KFK) with orchards with an area of ​​1.33 thousand hectares. The annual sales volume is about 75 thousand tons per year. At the end of 2021, Druzhba Narodiv Meat Processing Plant LLC received revenue in the amount of 9.79 billion rubles, KFK - 1.3 billion rubles.

In May of this year, 100% of Optima-Finance Management Company LLC was transferred to Pud LLC, the largest Crimean retailer, which is controlled by structures close to Agrocomplex. Prior to this, Vaninsky had repeatedly spoken about the possibility of selling the Friendship of Peoples Agro-Industrial Holding. The interest of Alexander Tkachev's holding with the main production sites in the Krasnodar Territory and a trading network in the Crimea in its acquisition is quite obvious. Friendship of Peoples is one of the suppliers to retail outlets.

According to Marat Ibragimov, a senior analyst at Gazprombank, the proximity of poultry sites to feed production is of primary importance for a strategic investor, and own retail will accelerate the return on investment, because it makes it possible to include part of the costs in food prices.

Another Kommersant source added that the value of the irrigated crop assets and gardens of the Druzhba Narodov ABH increased after the North Crimean Canal was unblocked during the military conflict on the territory of Ukraine.

Andrey Sizov, DIRECTOR of the SovEcon think tank, said that given the expanding Western sanctions against RUSSIA and the close attention to the Crimea as a transit point for the supply of agricultural products close to Ukraine, such investments seem risky. However, Alexander Tkachev has been under sanctions for eight years now - since 2014 (then he was the governor of the Krasnodar Territory).

Agribusiness is growing like clockwork. In the food industry of the Russian Federation, the leader in revenue may change

Agrocomplex them. N.I. Tkacheva occupies the 2nd place in the Russian Federation in the production of raw MILK, the 4th in poultry meat, the 5th in terms of SUGAR sales and the 11th in pork. As of May 2021, the holding's land bank in southern Russia amounted to 660,000 hectares. Last year, Agrocomplex's revenue reached 71.8 billion rubles (+25% yoy).