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charges could be a warning call to the industry amid government plans to resume state support for Russian car sector, in order to prevent a possible decline of sales in 2019. Extensive state support contributed to the recovery of the passenger car and LCV market in 2017-2018, but the sales declined for two consecutive months in April and May 2019. Exchange bonds of Rolf on Moscow Exchange dropped by 15% on the news of criminal charges, with yields up by 16.98%. According to investigators, in 2014, Petrov violated laws on currency regulation and currency control and illegally transferred proceeds of Rolf activity to the accounts of his Cypriot Panabel Limited firm. Recent reports also claimed that Russian car market could be shrinking faster than the industry data suggests, with a real decline in car sales at 18% in May 2019 if accounted only for actual sales by the car dealers.
9.2.6 Agriculture corporate news
Bonduelle-Belgorod, one of the subsidiaries of French food major Bonduelle in Russia, will getting into the frozen vegetable business in Russia after it acquired the assets of the Shebekinsky vegetable factory, which went bankrupt in 2018 and specialises in producing packed frozen vegetables.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a sovereign fund with $10bn of own funds and $40bn of co-investments, could acquire a stake in Rusagro agriculture major of Vadim Moshkovich, Kommersant daily said on June 5 citing the head of the fund Kirill Dmitriev. Reportedly RDIF is interested in the asset and is in "advanced negotiations" with Rusagro, which is interested in company's projects that focus on exports to China. Rusagro is one of Russia's largest producers of sugar, meat, vegetable oil and mayonnaise. It is owned by the family of ex-senator of Vadim Moshkovich that control 71.9% of the shares, and a minority stake of 7.3% is held by the company's head Maksim Basov. The rest of the shares is freefloat. The company more than doubled both revenues and Ebitda in 1Q19 under IFRS.
Chinese COFCO trading corporation is eyeing a 25% stake in Russian KSK grain terminal in Novorossiysk, Vedomoti daily and Reuters reported on July 14 citing the sources close to the deal. DeloPorts controlling the third largest grain terminal in the southern Chernomorsk region of Russia confirmed the negotiations without disclosing the details. The possible deal adds to several other pointing to possible expansion of Chinese investment in Russian agro sector. KSK terminal handled 4.8mn tonnes on grain exports, 25% plus one share in the terminal is controlled by Cargill, which is reportedly not participating in the COFCO deal. Previously in 2015-2016 COFCO acquired trading companies Noble Agri and Nidera, that also operate in Russia. In 2018 season the Chinese corporation was 16th largest grain exporter from Russia.
9.2.7 TMT corporate news
Alibaba Group, MegaFon, Mail.ru and Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) have signed definitive documents to create an e-commerce joint venture (AliExpress Russia). According to our estimates, the value of the JV for the purposes of the deal was USD 2bn, while Mail.ru is to get a 15% stake by contributing its ecommerce service Pandao and USD 182mn of cash. We believe that the deal is supportive for Mail.ru’s investment case, as the
106 RUSSIA Country Report July 2019 www.intellinews.com