Managing partner in Marshall Capital Konstantin Malofeev made a well-timed investment in the New Zealand dairy industry.
Photo: Yury Martyanov
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Russians Invests in NZ Dairy Co.
The Nutritek Group, one of Russia's three largest milk producers, will launch a new diary processing plant in New Zealand today. Nutritek invested $20 million in the plant, as well as another $40 million to bring its stake in New Zealand Dairies Ltd. to the controlling level. Nutritek is the only foreign investor on the NZ diary market so far. Until recently, that market was monopolized by the Fonterra Co. Now legislators are cautiously opening up the market.
The Russian company formed a partnership with several dozen diary farmers around Canterbury last year, buying a 5.6-percent share in the company for $1.6 million. After NZ antimonopoly authorities approve the current deal, Nutritek may invest an additional $40 million in the diary plant to double its capacity, which is now 18,000 tons of dry milk annually. Nutritek produces 20,000 tons of dry milk per year in Russia and Ukraine.
Nutritek is an association of 14 enterprises that produce diary products, baby food and special dietary products in Russia, Estonia and Ukraine. Its receipts in 2006 totaled $378.9 million, half of which came from baby food. The company controls 8.2 percent of the Russian dry milk market of 200,000-240,000 tons per year. The company's main shareholder is Marshall Milk Investments, a subsidiary of Marshall Capital, but 27 percent of the group's stock is traded on the RTS. As of yesterday, the capitalization of Nutrinvestholding was $680 million.
Analysts praise the company's move, noting that the price of whole dry milk on the international market rose from $3025 to $4750 between May and July this year and nonfat dry milk from $3310 to $5050 in the same period. Meanwhile, Russia is experiencing a shortage of milk and dry milk. The price of milk in Russia rose 7.2 percent in September, according to Rosstat, the state statistics agency. Agriculture Minster Alexey Gordeev promised yesterday to lower the duty on imported dry milk from 15 percent to 5 percent.
Other Russian companies are expected to enter Western diary markets. Wimm-Bill-Dann chairman David Yakobashvili announced that company's plans to acquire enterprises in Eastern Europe, China and the United States yesterday. Observers not that New Zealand, with its export-oriented dairy industry, is a more attractive site for investment.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 11, 2007
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