GC "KoPitania" Mikhail Abyzov put up for sale

The owners of a large MEAT producer, KoPitania Group of Companies, which was part of the Ru-Com group of ex-Minister for Open Government Mikhail Abyzov, put the business up for sale. Finding one buyer at once for all enterprises with a capacity of more than 60 thousand tons of pork, 40 thousand tons of poultry meat and 60 thousand tons of meat products per year will be difficult, experts say. But individual assets may be of interest to market participants.

The owners of the large meat producer KoPitania Group are considering the possibility of selling 100% of the group to a strategic investor. This is stated in the presentation available to Kommersant for potential buyers, prepared by the Russian Agricultural Bank, which was selected as the exclusive financial consultant for the transaction. The company did not provide a comment. The bank did not disclose details, but noted that they see a wide list of potential interested parties, and hope to complete the transaction in early 2022.

KoPitania was part of the Ru-Com group of Mikhail Abyzov (FORBES estimates his fortune at $650 million). In 2012-2018, Mr. Abyzov served as Minister for Open Government, and in 2019 he was arrested on suspicion of organizing a criminal community and fraud. Now the beneficiary of KoPitania is Alexander Rogozhin, who was previously the CEO of Ru-Com, follows from the company's financial statements.

According to KoPitania's presentation, the group manages enterprises in the Volgograd, Saratov and Tver regions. it includes the Khvalynsky, Krasnodonskoye, Zavolzhskoye pig-breeding complexes with a total capacity of 61 thousand tons of pork per year, the Zavolzhsky and Novopushkinsky meat processing plants for 66 thousand tons of products and the Krasnodonskaya poultry farm with a capacity of 43 thousand tons of poultry meat in year. In addition, it owns a feed mill, an elevator with a capacity of 85 thousand tons and 28 thousand hectares of land.

In 2020, the total revenue of the group's meat production enterprises exceeded 15.7 billion rubles, Kommersant calculated on the basis of reports.

Yury Kovalev, General DIRECTOR of the National Union of Pig Breeders, recalls that the most attractive assets of KoPitania - pig breeding complexes in Siberia - were acquired by the Sibagro group in 2019. Of the remaining ones, a relatively new division in the Saratov region may be of the greatest interest, he notes. According to Mr. Kovalev, most likely, a separate buyer should be sought for each KoPitania asset. Sergei Moiseev, HEAD of Unicorn Capital Advisers, agrees that KoPitania is "a heterogeneous set of assets that can be sold piecemeal."

According to a Kommersant source, part of KoPitania's assets may be of interest to GAP Resource Viktor Nauruzov. This large poultry meat producer also began to actively develop processing this year, becoming the owner of the Integra meat products enterprise and the Family Sausages meat processing plant in Saratov. The GAP "Resource" declined to comment. Sibagro did not answer questions. In the Cherkizovo group, the Mikhailov families said that today this asset is of no interest to the company.

Agrifood Strategies President Albert Davleev says that, on the one hand, rising meat prices indicate an undersaturation of the domestic market, on the other hand, the industry has the highest production cost over the past ten years. According to the expert, although KoPitania's assets are located in different regions, the business has an optimal structure in terms of synergy, including feed production, pig breeding, poultry farming and meat processing. But, adds Mr. Davleev, the biological protection systems at some KoPitania complexes do not correspond to modern risks. In his opinion, if meat holdings may be interested in individual enterprises of the group, then in general, the business can attract a large non-core investor.