The court prohibited Ravis from choosing a board of directors due to a dispute with the new co-owner about candidates

The corresponding claim was accepted for proceedings by the Arbitration COURT of the Chelyabinsk Region, according to the file of arbitration cases.

The Arbitration Court of the Chelyabinsk Region has scheduled a hearing for May 14 on the claim against the Ravis agricultural holding (a large producer and processor of poultry MEAT in the Urals) by its new co-owner, the Ural Agro-Industrial Group (UAG), for the inclusion of candidates in the voting lists at the upcoming annual meeting shareholders of the parent company of the agricultural holding - JSC "Ravis - Sosnovskaya Poultry Farm ".

The corresponding claim was accepted for proceedings by the Arbitration Court of the Chelyabinsk Region, according to the file of arbitration cases.

UAG demands that Ravis be obliged to include the candidates proposed by the group in the voting list on issues of electing the board of directors and the audit commission.

The court granted the UAG's request for interim measures submitted along with the claim in the form of a ban on the meeting of shareholders of the JSC to make decisions on the election of its board of directors and audit commission.

Motivating its position, UAG noted that the election of the board of directors and the audit commission at the upcoming annual meeting without taking into account the candidates proposed by the group violates its rights as a shareholder, and therefore can be appealed in court as illegitimate.

The court, in turn, noted in the decision that “there is a corporate conflict in the company”, and “the declared interim measures (...) are related to the subject of the stated claim and are proportionate to it; failure to take interim measures before the arbitration court adopts a judicial act may lead to difficulties in the future of its execution (...), if the claim is satisfied."

According to the UAG, the annual meeting of the joint-stock company can be held from March 1 to June 30; the group proposed five of its candidates to the board of directors and three to the audit commission.

As reported, UAG became the owner of 41.66% of the shares of JSC Ravis - Sosnovskaya Poultry Farm, previously owned by Andrey Kosilov.

The deal became the subject of a series of lawsuits between the new shareholder and the agricultural holding. Thus, JSC "Ravis - Sosnovskaya Poultry Farm" went to court with a demand to invalidate the sale of its shares in UAG. The defendants in the lawsuit, in addition to the new shareholder, are the ex-co-owners of the agricultural holding Kosilov, Anisa Kosilova, Edem and Nailya Asanova. Proceedings have also been initiated against the joint-stock company against the ex-co-owners demanding disclosure of information about the transaction for the sale of shares. Preliminary hearings on the claims are scheduled for April 22 and April 10, respectively.

UAG, in turn, in addition to the claim about candidates for the board of directors and the revolutionary commission, requires the JSC to provide a number of corporate and financial documents. A hearing on this claim is scheduled for April 10.

According to reports, at the end of 2022, the major shareholder of Ravis - Sosnovskaya Poultry Farm, in addition to Kosilov, was Igor Serbinov with a share of 31.3%. Minority shares were owned by Fedor Bogdanchikov (4.17%) and Vladislav Egorov (6.25%).

Serbinov, among other things, owns, through LLC L-Avto, a large manufacturer of corrugated cardboard packaging, LLC Yuzhuralkarton (Korkino, Chelyabinsk region).

The Ravis agricultural holding unites 11 enterprises, including a broiler fattening site, breeding breeders,a pig farm and agricultural enterprises in the Chelyabinsk region, as well as the Sredneuralskaya poultry farm, which has been mothballed since 2021. It is one of the largest producers and processors of poultry meat in RUSSIA.

The owner of the Ural Agro-Industrial Group, according to Kommersant, is Kurgan businessman Andrei Petrov. UAG operates the Reftinskaya poultry farm in the Sverdlovsk region and owns the Kurgan meat processing plant Standard.