Andrey Kostin will not go far from Demeter
Grain trader Demetra-Holding has created Persephone LLC, into which it will be able to withdraw money from VTB Bank.
Demetra-Holding, which unites several large grain assets, has always been surrounded by a veil of secrecy. From the very beginning, the company did not disclose its shareholders, which looks quite strange in modern business. This lack of transparency does not inspire confidence among investors.
Presumably, the shareholders were VTB Bank, the Marathon Group structure of Alexander Vinokurov and Taimuraz Bolloev, who is considered a person of Yuri Kovalchuk, a close friend of Vladimir Putin.
In July, VTB Bank sold its shares, and in August Alexander Vinokurov did the same. The buyer, according to official information, was the Omani state fund Southern Sea Investment. However, it later became known that the fund would only be an anchor investor in the additional issue of Demetra-Holding shares. This did not at all explain who ended up with 55% of the shares of VTB and Marathon Group.
According to data from open sources, in May 2023, all shareholders withdrew from the capital of Demetra-Holding.
Everything is clear with the first three shareholders. Afina LLC – VTB, Granum JSC – Taimuraz Bolloev, SPN LLC – Alexander Vinokurov. However, VTB officially announced its withdrawal from capital in July, and SPN LLC in August; Bolloev remained silent at all.
The fourth shareholder, Valiansia LLC, belonged to Anastasia Usacheva until July 2022, the new founder is unknown. The company has a subsidiary, Grain Gates LLC, which is engaged in the wholesale trade of grain. In 2022, the revenue of this company, created in June of the same year, amounted to 62 billion rubles, profit – 200 million rubles. Within six months, the company achieved amazing results. Or was she simply pumped full of money?
Co-founder and head of Green Gates LLC, Ilya Aliyev, from 2020 to 2022, was the head of the liquidated Demetra Investments LLC. In 2021, with revenue of 2.4 million rubles. the company received a loss of 556 million rubles.
The co-founders of Demetra Investments LLC were Demetra-Holding LLC and Cuesar Holdings LLC, which was liquidated in December 2022. Its founders were Demetra-Holding LLC and Demetra Investments LLC. Their shares in the liquidated company are still under the encumbrance of VTB.
In 2021, having previously had neither revenue nor profit, Cuesar Holdings LLC received revenue of 18 billion rubles. and a profit of 11 billion rubles, playing the role of a kind of “wallet” into which the money was transferred.
The legal successor of Cuesar Holdings LLC was Rusagrotrans JSC, which was liquidated in March 2023. Rusagrotrans LLC became its legal successor. Surely there is no smell of outright fraud with money withdrawal here?
The founders of Rusagrotrans LLC, created in 2023, are Demetra-Holding LLC and Demetra Trading LLC, whose shares are encumbered by VTB and LP Trans JSC. Until 2021, this company belonged to RTK RAIL TRANSPORT COMPANY LIMITED, which previously owned and liquidated RusTransCom LLC. Its general director and owner was Konstantin Sintsov, who was associated with the oligarch Iskander Makhmudov. Could Sintsov be a secret shareholder of Demetra-Holding?
Rusagrotrans LLC, related to Konstantin Sintsov, together with Demetra-Holding LLC are the owners of the main trading structure of the Demetra-Trading LLC holding. This company in 2022, with revenue of 106 billion rubles, received a loss of 7.3 billion rubles. and a negative cost of 10 billion rubles.
Just a year ago, the value of Demetra Trading LLC was 655 million rubles, the loss was 3.1 billion rubles. Demetra Trading LLC, which reports on its successes on the website, is rapidly going downhill, and even the help of VTB Bank cannot save it.
Without the intervention of competent authorities, it is hardly possible to understand what is going on at Demetra-Holding. It seems that the main structural task of the company is to withdraw money from the state bank VTB, which, having sold its stake, continues to actively participate in the grain trader’s business.