Ekoniva will compete for shares in the business with Rosselkhozbank

Источник: forbes.ru
The plaintiffs to the structure of Rosselkhozbank RSHB-Finance were Stefan Durr, the founder of the largest milk producer in the country Ekoniva, his Ekosem Agrar AG, Ekosem Schwarzerde GmbH and Elena Levina. They demand the termination of agreements on the granting of an option to buy out shares in the Ekoniva business at par value.

Stefan Dürr, the founder of the largest milk producer in the country, Ekoniva, challenged in court the right of Rosselkhozbank to buy out shares in the business at par. The plaintiffs have already obtained interim measures on the claim, but it will be extremely difficult to prove the bank's unfair actions in the case when the conditions for the implementation of the option have come, the Kommersant writes with reference to lawyers.

According to the newspaper, Stefan Durr, his Ekosem Agrar AG, Ekosem Schwarzerde GmbH and Elena Levina appealed to the Arbitration Court of Voronezh region. In their lawsuit against the structure of Rosselkhozbank RSHB-Finance, they demanded the termination of the agreements on granting an option to conclude a contract for the purchase and sale of shares in LLC Ekoniva-APK Holding, LLC Ekoniva-Food Products and LLC Ekoniva-APK Chernozemye. The total nominal value of the shares is 5.3 million rubles. At the same time, the plaintiffs filed an application for the adoption of interim measures - a ban on performing actions aimed at enforcement of rights before the decision on the case comes into force. The court granted the application, the preliminary hearing is scheduled for August 24. Rosselkhozbank and Ekoniva did not provide comments. The Ministry of Agriculture told the newspaper that they are aware of the situation and expect it to be resolved taking into account the interests of all parties.

The interlocutors of the newspaper said that the owners of Ekoniva believe that the bank "artificially" creates a situation in which it will be able to exercise options— it restricts the financing of the holding. Earlier, sources of the newspaper reported that the holding stopped the investment program and plans to cut more than 2,500 people to reduce costs, and Rosselkhozbank reported that they are studying opportunities to optimize the holding's credit load. Ekoniva also negotiated a possible sale of 30-50% of the business with potential investors.

According to Marat Ibragimov, senior analyst at Gazprombank, the terms of such agreements usually provide for certain levels of debt-to-EBITDA ratio and expenses-to-operating profit. If these levels are violated, the lender has a reason to use the option. At the end of 2020, all of Ekoniva's liabilities reached €1.7 billion, the company reported. The total amount of the debt to Rosselkhozbank was not disclosed. According to a lawyer of KA Pen & Paper Ekaterina Tokareva, the conditions for the implementation of options by the bank have come or will come in the near future. Arbitration courts, as a rule, apply measures to secure a claim only if there is evidence that the defendant has committed actions aimed, for example, at taking shares, she explained.

According to Ibragimov, the transfer of Ekoniva to the bank's ownership will allow avoiding the most undesirable scenario — bankruptcy: the lender will be able to carry out financial recovery of the asset, update management and attract a new investor. The situation is similar to the story with Eurodon, he noted. Eurodon was the largest turkey producer in the Russian Federation, but in 2017, after an outbreak of bird flu, the group had difficulties servicing its debt to VEB — about 30 billion rubles. Then the founder Vadim Vaneev sold the controlling shares to the VEB group at par with the right to repurchase with a reduction in debt. The situation did not improve, then VEB removed Vaneev from the leadership, then assigned the debt to Rosselkhozbank, which in 2021 sold the assets to Damate Group of Companies to Naum Babayev and Rashid Khayrov.

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