Vostochny Asset LLC agreed with Sberbank on the assignment of claims to Sokra Fish Processing Plant LLC in Kamchatka

The Krasnodar company Vostochny Aktiv, which is associated with the former head of the Ministry of Agriculture Alexander Tkachev, is expanding its presence in the fishing industry. This structure bought out the debts of the Kamchatka plant Sokra, which produces fish fillets, canned food and caviar, from Sberbank, and now it can lay claim to the company’s assets. The business has good profitability, but it is likely that it will be difficult to attract competent management, experts say.

Vostochny Asset LLC agreed with Sberbank on the assignment of claims to Sokra Fish Processing Plant LLC in Kamchatka, follows from the filing cabinet of arbitration cases. As part of the recovery by the bank from the company of 1.19 billion rubles. On August 9, the Arbitration Court of the Kamchatka Territory replaced the plaintiff with Vostochny Asset. The application for the succession of the bankruptcy creditor in the Sokra bankruptcy case will be considered by the court on August 21. Sberbank confirmed the sale of the debt to Kommersant, refusing to disclose details.

Krasnodar Vostochny Aktiv LLC can act in the interests of Alexander Tkachev, the former head of the Ministry of Agriculture and the owner of the Agrocomplex. N. I. Tkachev, Kommersant sources said earlier. The company is owned by Yevgeny Svistula and this year became the owner of Vityaz Avto LLC, which operates a salmon farm and a sockeye salmon fishery in Kamchatka. Also, Mr. Svistula owned Land Reserve LLC, which bought the RAV Agro agricultural holding from the Czech PPF Group in 2022. Since then, vacancies in the structures of RAV Agro have been published in the profile of the agricultural complex on HeadHunter, and purchases for the needs of RAV Agro have been published on tender sites. The representative of the agricultural complex did not answer Kommersant’s questions.

According to its own data, Sokra can process more than 100 tons of fish per day. The assortment includes, in particular, fillets, canned food, preserves, caviar under the brand “41 Regions”. The fleet consists of nine vessels. According to the Federal Agency for Fishery, the quotas available to Sokra in 2023 allow them to catch more than 5.7 thousand tons of pollock, over 800 tons of cod, as well as flounder and halibut.

Andrey Obedin is the general director and owner of 51% of Sokra. A criminal case has been initiated against him on charges of fraud and abuse of power, related to the receipt of part of the property of the Konkom shipyard in Kamchatka, the Vedomosti newspaper wrote. As Kommersant was informed earlier in Socre, in connection with the criminal case, the bank suspended the issuance of working loans and financing the construction of three fishing vessels, and then demanded an early return of the funds issued. In “Socre” on August 14, “Kommersant” did not promptly respond.

ProLegals partner Elena Kravtsova says that the buyer of claims, as the majority creditor, will be able to determine issues regarding the fate of the debtor, including the possibility of settling the dispute by amicable agreement. In such situations, according to her, transactions for terminating the bankruptcy procedure with the transfer of corporate control over the debtor to the investor are common. The beneficiaries of the debtor often agree to the transfer of shares and shares to the majority creditor with guarantees of termination of the procedure and the absence of consequences in the form of contesting transactions or bringing to losses, subsidiary liability, the lawyer notes.

Investors from other industries are now actively interested in the fishing business. This summer, the structure of the owner of the Agrivolga agricultural holding, Sergei Bachin, acquired the Sakhalin company Alaid (see Kommersant of July 19). And in 2022, AFK Sistema began investing in the salmon catch in Kamchatka. Alexander Fomin, executive director of the Association of Production and Trading Enterprises of the Fish Market, says that enterprises in the fishing industry that have their own quotas remain attractive assets. In the extraction of pollock, he notes, profitability can be at the level of 100%. But business is complicated by natural risks, high requirements for management competencies and regulatory changes, the expert says. In the first quarter of 2023, the revenue of the fishing industry grew by 3.5% year-on-year, to 219.9 billion rubles, while profit decreased by 35.5%, to 31.1 billion rubles, the All-Russian Association of Fisheries Industry (VARPE) reported.

Anatoly Kostyrev