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international traders. They still face challenges such as financial logistics, ship chartering and the refusal of banks to provide guarantees.
As followed by bne IntelliNews, agro and grain asset deals have been in focus as large Russian market players reshape the domestic market amid Western sanctions as a result of the military invasion of Ukraine.
In February 2022 the heavily sanctioned state-controlled VTB Bank started divesting its grain assets. In the past few years VTB had been hoovering up assets in the grain export sector and now controls about a fifth of the business, becoming the largest operator of grain infrastructure in the process.
VTB divested its stake in Demetra Holding, which controls a 50% minus one share stake in UGC, the government's agency for grain reserves and interventions. The UGC told Kommersant previously that due to the difficult foreign policy situation in July and August, the group's grain exports had fallen by about 47% to 0.2mn tonnes.
Demetra's assets also include Russia's largest grain terminals: Novorossiysk Grain Terminal, a 35.5% stake in the Novorossiysk Grain Mill, a grain terminal in Taman owned on a parity basis with Glencore commodity trader, controlling stakes in railway holding Rustranscom (including Rusagrotrans, the largest grain transporter by rail) and major grain exporter Mirogroup Resources.
10 RUSSIA Country Report July 2023 www.intellinews.com