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«AgroInvest» — News — Unknown investor bought a 27% stake in Sweden’s ag company having assets in Ukraine

Unknown investor bought a 27% stake in Sweden’s ag company having assets in Ukraine

2014-08-13 11:03:28

Sweden’s agricultural holding Agrokultura, which has land parcels in Ukraine and Russia, has stated that an unknown company is buying up its shares outside the market. Vedomosti reports with a reference to the company’s employees that Agrokultura’s shares have been traded on the Stockholm Exchange since 2007, but somebody bought up 26.8% of shares outside the market in the last three weeks.

The shares had belonged to the funds Hunter Hall, Schroders, and Two Eye Fund Ltd. According to the holding, the buyer of its shares is Steenord Ltd., an offshore company from the British Virgin Islands. If all the packages were sold to one entity, this makes it the largest holder of Agrokultura’s shares. Steenord currently owns up to 27.5% in the holding, whereas Swedish law rules that a shareholder who has gathered 30% must make a proposal to the remaining holders for the purchase of the entire business. Agrokultura suspects Russian agricultural holding Prodimpex (or its investor) of standing behind the hostile buy-up of the securities. Prodimpex actively invests in land near Agrokultura’s Russian assets. The Russian company insists it has nothing to do with this.

Meanwhile, the Swedes are urgently convening an extraordinary meeting of shareholders to issue additional shares and thereby dilute Steenord’s stake: the idea is to increase the portion of those who support the management. However, this will be difficult to do because the new shareholder may either block the additional-issue decision or demand the right to acquire a package at least proportional to its current stake. Prodimpex is controlled by Russian multimillionaire Igor Khudokormov (172th position on the Russian billionaire list according to Forbes). This holding leads Russia’s sugar market.
 

 

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