Adamantine turkey – Newspaper Kommersant No. 231 (7432) dated 12/13/2022

The potential for increasing the production of turkey meat and high prices for products attract non-core investors to the business. Thus, the co-owner of the Adamant holding, Vladimir Golubev, turned out to be an investor in a company that bought out a third player in this market from the auction – the Gafuri complex in Bashkiria. Competition in the industry will become tougher, and the growth in demand depends on the income of the population.

Vladimir Golubev, co-owner of the Adamant holding, became the owner of 49.68% of MSK LLC, which entered into an agreement to purchase the property of the Gafuri Bashkir Poultry Complex (BPK) for 3.3 billion rubles. Changes to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities were made in November. The rest of the share in the MSC was transferred to the ZPIF “Kvark” under the management of the management company “Baltinvest”. Previously, MSC was owned by the general director Svetlana Bogdanova.

BOD is one of the largest turkey producers in the country (Indyushkin brand). Belonged to the daughter of ex-deputy of the State Duma Marcel Yusupov Nelli Yusupova and the former owner of Uralkapitalbank Damir Kamilov. But difficulties arose with the business, and in 2018 the company entered bankruptcy proceedings. In 2019, BPC was leased by the Gleden Invest structure of Alexander Klyachin PK Ural. According to Agrifood Strategies, 20.24 thousand tons of turkey meat were produced at BOD in 2021. This corresponds to the third place after Naum Babaev and Rashid Khairov (Indylight) and the Mikhailov family Cherkizovo group (Pava-Pava).

Initially, the bankruptcy trustee of the BPC announced the winner of the auction for the sale of property to GB Finance Ltd from Kazakhstan, which was associated with the main owner of the Don Agro agricultural holding, Yevgeny Tugolukov. But then this message was canceled, and LLC MSK was declared the winner. According to a Kommersant source, GB Finance Ltd participated in the auction as an agent. Alexandra Fomina, a junior partner at Sotheby’s law firm, says that due to the tight deadlines for summing up the results, the lack of an agency agreement, and an incorrectly drawn up agreement, the bankruptcy trustee cannot always correctly determine the winner. A representative of Adamant confirmed to Kommersant that BOD is a new project of Vladimir Golubev, where he acts as an investor and will be the ultimate beneficiary. Representatives of Alexander Klyachin and Don Agro did not provide comments.

Agrifood Strategies President Albert Davleev says that by the end of 2022, the volume of turkey meat production may exceed the initial forecast of 420 thousand tons and reach the level of 430-440 thousand tons against about 400 thousand tons in 2021. According to Mr. Davleev, the domestic market remains unsaturated, and prices for turkey meat remain stably high, although pork and chicken have noticeably become cheaper in the last two weeks.

The head of the National Meat Association, Sergei Yushin, notes that the cost of turkey meat production has decreased relative to 2021 due to cheaper feed. But there are already two leaders in the industry with huge output volumes that continue to develop, so competition will intensify, he points out. In addition, Mr. Yushin adds, despite the remaining opportunities to increase turkey production, the potential for growth in meat consumption is limited by the stagnation of household incomes. Although turkey meat has a good potential for increasing exports, he notes.

Kommersant’s source on the market admits that in the future, BOD may change ownership again. Theoretically, the asset could be of interest to the Cherkizovo group, which plans to purchase the Russkoye Zerno group of companies in Bashkiria and can get synergy with BOD, he argues. Cherkizovo did not provide a comment. Agrifood Strategies estimates the potential of the domestic market for turkey meat at 650 thousand tons per year.

Anatoly Kostyrev