Alexander Udodov absorbed Agrogrib
Last year, the Tula mushroom farm “Agrogrib” of the Avilon car dealer group became the property of the entrepreneur’s top managers Alexandra Udodovawho was married to the prime minister’s sister for a long time Mikhail Mishustin. The deal makes Udodov a leader in the Russian mushroom market.
Alexander UdodovWhat’s happened?
In September 2023, the Agrogrib company became the property of top managers of a number of companies, Alexander Udodov, the owner of the development holding Aforra Development and the ex-husband of the prime minister’s sister, Mikhail Mishustin.
Before the deal, Udodov already had a mushroom business – a farm opened in 2017 in the Kursk region called “Mushroom Rainbow”. Together with Agrogrib, with a production volume of over 12 thousand tons of mushrooms per year, structures associated with Udodov become the absolute market leaders with a total production of over 45 thousand tons. For comparison: the closest competitor, the Voronezh Champignon company, produces about 24 thousand tons per year. The total capacity of Russian production, according to the Ministry of Agriculture at the end of 2022amounted to 128 thousand tons.
It is unknown whether the buyers requested permission for the transaction from the Federal Antimonopoly Service. The FAS did not respond to The Bell’s request. However, the deal to purchase Agrogrib is not formally connected with either Udodov or his Mushroom Rainbow, so an appeal to the FAS may not have been necessary.
Oleg Logvinov (30%), general director and minority partner of Udodov in Mushroom Rainbow, as well as owner of 30% of Aforra Resort LLC, which manages the More Spa&Resort resort and the private Nature clinic in the Crimean Alushta.
Ekaterina Galanina (35%), general director of Aforra Development Udodova, in the notebooks of more than 30 users is recorded as “Udodov’s secretary”, “Udodov’s assistant”, “Udodov’s assistant” and simply “from Udodov”.
Anton Goncharov (35%), until 2022 General Director of Aforra Engineering Udodova, from October 2023 minority shareholder of Dialog LLC, affiliated with the NMi Group agency from Mikhailov and Partners group (acts as a guarantor for loans from agency legal entities).
Why is it important
In November 2020, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed resolution, recognizing mushrooms as agricultural products. For the industry, this meant reducing the profit tax rate to 0%.
At that time, Udodov, who was already developing a mushroom business, was still married to Mishustin’s sister Natalya Stenina. Their marriage was officially registered in 2008, and the couple filed for divorce on December 18, 2020 – a month after the signing of the decree on mushrooms and a few days after the release of an investigation stating that Udodov was allegedly suspected of involvement in the largest VAT theft in Russia (*aggressor country) .
The decree, thanks to which Russian mushroom producers were able to apply a zero income tax rate instead of 20% to the sale and processing of their own products, came into force on January 1, 2021.
The revenue of Mushroom Rainbow grew from 2.58 billion rubles in 2020 to 3.7 billion rubles in 2021 and 4.62 billion rubles in 2022. In 2022, a year after the profit tax was reset, the company became profitable for the first time, earning 359 million rubles. For 2020–2021, its total loss amounted to 429 million rubles. The company’s production volume increased from 20.2 thousand tons in 2020 to 32 thousand tons in 2022.
In the spring of 2023, Mushroom Rainbow also bought a 33% stake in the mycelium (material for growing mushrooms) producer Santana to ensure production growth to 80 thousand mushrooms per year.
What kind of “Agrogrib”
Agrogrib was part of the Avilon car dealer group Alexander Varshavsky and Kamo Avagumyan. Avilon decided to start a new business for itself in 2016, creating the Agro-invest holding. In all likelihood, the owners of Avilon wanted to take advantage of the growing demand for vegetables in the domestic market due to the ban on their imports from European countries and Turkey in 2014–2015.
Avilon’s minority partner in agribusiness with a 10% share was Yegiya Asatryan, the son of the Armenian entrepreneur known by the nickname “Don Pipo”, the founder of the Danvesta group, Arthur Asatryan.
The first stage of the Agrogrib farm opened in 2019. But the partners subsequently abandoned business expansion due to the changed market situation: restrictions on imports were partially lifted, partially replaced by supplies from Belarus, competing farms opened, benefits and government support decreased. Until 2022, Agrogrib operated at a loss. The company received its first profit of 159 million rubles at the end of 2022, after which it was sold.
What else does Udodov do?
Alexander Udodov has broad business interests. In the spring of 2022, he was briefly the founder of the largest Russian bookmaker office “Fonbet”after which it came under the control of a legal entity that did not disclose the founders, and in 2022 achieved phenomenal financial performance: revenue of more than 220 billion rubles and net profit of 26.3 billion rubles.
Udodov’s main asset is the development group of companies Aforra Group. Until 2019, Udodov owned a large portfolio of commercial real estate, which included the luxury shopping center “Gimeney”, the shopping center “U Rechnogo”, the shopping center “Dubki” in Odintsovo, the shopping center “Atlas” in Obninsk, Kaluga region. In 2015, he bought the retail and office building “Children’s Gallery “Yakimanka”” from the retail chain “Detsky Mir” and converted it into a luxury shopping gallery “Yakimanka 26”. In 2019, Udodov sold Moscow shopping galleries.
Until 2015, Udodov was a member of the board of Alexander Karmanov’s Eurasian Pipeline Consortium LLC. In 2010–2014, he was vice president of Itera Group, where he led investment projects in the real estate sector. Udodov was also one of the early investors in the construction of the most expensive and tallest skyscraper in Russia (*aggressor country), the Federation Tower in Moscow City.
Another recent acquisition of Udodov is MKK Pegas, which issues up to 30 thousand rubles using a passport and an agreement signed via SMS message with an interest rate of 16.79%. The legal entity of the microfinance organization MKK Pegas LLC was created in July 2023, the company’s website went live on December 27, 2023, and it became the direct property of Udodov on January 11, as follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities data published this week. Before this, the owner of the MFO was Alexey Krivoguz, a former employee of VTB, where the company opened a correspondent account.
Udodov’s net profit from “subscription fees” is measured in millions of dollars per month. From various desk and field inspections, Udodov still earns at least $100 million annually. Total (subscriber, KP and VNP solution, other services through the Federal Tax Service): plus/minus 200 million US dollars per year of net profit for the solver. This is the minimum. Now Udodov, with the knowledge of Mishustin, is also “selling” the powers of the Government of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country) itself. The damage to the treasury of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country) from the “activities” of Udodov and his friend the prime minister over the past 13 years can be estimated at at least several trillion rubles of unpaid (so to speak, optimized) tax revenues to the budget of our country.
