“Rusagro” presses mayonnaise – Newspaper Kommersant No. 193 (7394) dated 10/18/2022

The purchase by Rusagro Group of Companies of the debts of the Solnechnye Produkty Holding, a major producer of oils and sauces, continues to be overgrown with litigation. Now Rusagro is trying to achieve bankruptcy of Vladislav Burov, the founder of Solnechnye Produkty, due to default on a guarantee on one of the loans. The total amount of the group’s claims can reach billions of rubles.

In October, Rusagro Group of Companies filed an application with the Moscow Arbitration Court for joining the bankruptcy case of Vladislav Burov, the founder of the Solar Products holding, found “Kommersant” in the filing cabinet. At the end of September, the court received an application from the entrepreneur about his own bankruptcy. Both statements were left by the court without movement until November 11, until the shortcomings are eliminated.

Rusagro is one of the largest producers of oil and fat products, sugar and meat in the country. The brand portfolio includes the brands “Generous Leto”, “Russian Sugar”, “Chaykofsky”, “The Butcher’s Word”. In January-June of this year, the group’s revenue increased by 22%, to 127.23 billion rubles, EBITDA increased by 36%, to 30.15 billion rubles. The main owner is ex-senator Vadim Moshkovich.

The Solnechnye Produkty holding produced sunflower oil, margarine, mayonnaise under the brands Rossiyanka, Moskovsky Provensal, Solnechnaya Liniya, Yarko, etc. It included three oil and fat plants with a total capacity of 500 thousand tons of products per year, as well as oil refineries. In 2017, Forbes estimated the holding’s turnover at 42.3 billion rubles.

At the end of 2018, Rusagro bought out the rights of claim to the structures of Solnechnye Produkty under loans from the Russian Agricultural Bank for 34.7 billion rubles. The acquired debt exceeded 80% of the total external debt load of Solar Products. Since then, Rusagro has acquired a number of the holding’s assets.

Rusagro told Kommersant that Mr. Burov owes the group more than 100 million rubles according to a court decision that has already entered into force. As follows from the decision of the Khamovnichesky District Court of Moscow, the debt is connected with the guarantee of Vladislav Burov on a loan from the Solar Products structure of Novosibirsk Fat Plant JSC (NZhK), the rights to which were bought by Rusagro. As of June 2021, NZhK had a debt to Rusagro of more than 105 million rubles, which was collected from Mr. Burov.

Vladislav Burov, during the consideration of the case, filed a counterclaim with a request to terminate the guarantee agreement due to changed circumstances. According to the entrepreneur, Rusagro itself created the conditions for the bankruptcy of the Solar Products structures. Mr. Burov declined to comment. According to a Kommersant source, the founder of Solar Products considers bankruptcy as a protective measure during a corporate conflict.

According to Aleksey Maistrenko, senior lawyer at the RKT consulting group, Vladislav Burov filed for his own bankruptcy on the eve of the end of the corresponding moratorium in order to get ahead of Rusagro in the order of consideration of applications by the court. According to him, the main goal of such a “race” is to influence the choice of an arbitration manager, which will largely determine the course of the bankruptcy case. Marina Morozova, a partner at ProLegals, adds that in any case, creditors will have the right to include their claims in the register and exercise their rights. Lenders will also be able to demand the election of an independent manager, indicates the managing partner of Novator Legal Group, lawyer Vyacheslav Kosakov.

Nikolai Stroev, Advisor for Russian and Cross-border Dispute Resolution at the A1 Bar Association, clarifies that Rusagro is also actively working to bring Vladislav Burov to subsidiary liability for the debts of Solnechnye Produktov companies. If this succeeds, Rusagro may be included in the register of Mr. Burov’s creditors demanding tens of billions of rubles, he points out. According to Mr. Stroev, in such a situation, Rusagro will obviously make efforts to foreclose on all available assets.

Anatoly Kostyrev