A company associated with Rusagro shareholders began exporting grain

A structure has entered the grain export market that may be associated with the shareholders of the Rusagro Group of Companies. Shipments were started by the Strand company of Yuri Zhuravlev, who bought a 7.22% stake from the structure of the group’s founder, ex-senator Vadim Moshkovich, and participated in related development projects. Margins for grain exporters have been extremely high in recent years, but this market is already characterized by strong consolidation, experts say.

Strand LLC, owned by Yuri Zhuravlev, the full namesake of the ex-shareholder of the large food manufacturer Rusagro Group of Companies, began exporting grain, as follows from the data of market participants available to Kommersant. According to figures received from a Kommersant source, from July to September, in the first three months of the season, Strand shipped about 90 thousand tons of grain, entering the top 30 exporters. But another Kommersant interlocutor says that the company has so far exported about 10 thousand tons of grain. The Strand declined to comment.

Strand may be a new project in the field of grain exports, created by Rusagro shareholders. Kommersant’s sources said in the spring that the founder of Rusagro, ex-senator Vadim Moshkovich, could invest in this business (see Kommersant on April 20). Kommersant’s interlocutors named the project manager as the founder of the Valars Group holding, Kirill Podolsky, who had previously announced on social networks that he was looking for a team for a new exporter of grains and oilseeds. Rusagro did not provide comments, Kirill Podolsky did not answer questions.

The name “Strand” can be derived from Safety Trading Research &, as follows from the company logo. Yuri Zhuravlev, said in the Rusagro report, was on the group’s board of directors in June-December 2022. In March 2022, after the introduction of EU sanctions against Vadim Moshkovich, Rusagro announced the purchase by Yuri Zhuravlev of a 7.22% stake from Granada Capital CY Ltd, which is under the indirect control of Mr. Moshkovich. Mr. Zhuravlev sold this package in December 2022 to Zircon-Holding. According to SPARK, Yuri Zhuravlev was also one of the founders of the structure of the development Level Group LLC SZ APD, where Vadim Moshkovich owns a share.

The Strand’s plans may be ambitious. As follows from the register of applications of the Novorossiysk grain terminal, this spring the company wanted to enter into an agreement for transshipment of 1.5 million tons of grain, but did not receive a quota. The application was given the status “awaiting free capacity”. As Kommersant’s source indicates, grain terminals are fully loaded.

Sovecon director Andrei Sizov notes that the business of grain exporters has been extremely profitable over the past two seasons due to low prices on the domestic market and high world quotations in 2022. But the unpredictability of business has increased, partly due to external factors, and primarily due to government intervention, the expert points out. Kommersant’s interlocutors attributed the slowdown in exports in October to the need to follow the prices recommended by the Ministry of Agriculture. According to Sovecon, by the end of last week, wheat from the Russian Federation with a protein of 12.5% ​​fell in price by $7, to $232 per ton (FOB), and the volume of contracts for the sale of Russian wheat in the week of October 25 decreased to 1.6 million tons , the lowest since early June.

General Director of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR) Dmitry Rylko says that this season there is a strengthening of the positions of Grain Gates, the Reef Trade House and the United Grain Company, as well as increased market concentration. According to him, the first four exporters (Trade House Reef, Green Gates, Aston and MZK Export) form about 80% of supplies through the Black Sea terminals. As Mr. Rylko notes, new players come and go and gaining a foothold in the export market becomes problematic, especially without the support of a strong agricultural business in the south of Russia.

Anatoly Kostyrev