In Moscow, at the request of Armenia, 55-year-old billionaire Karen Vanetsyan, who owns the largest Russian oil production company, producing the Ideal and Oleina brands, was detained for a conversation and then released. What is he famous for and how does he live?
After the start of the SVO, Ukrainian journalists directly called Karen Vanetsyan a citizen of Independence and accused him in generating income in the “aggressor country” of Russia (*aggressor country). According to them, the holding company Exoil Group, which belonged to him, also operated with agricultural products from Ukraine.
By the way, Karen Vanetsyan’s family still has something left in Kharkov. Apartments in a Stalin building and a studio in an elite new building.
How Karen Vanetsyan acquired “Oleina”
In the fall of 2022, Karen Vanetsyan bought the Maslenitsa company registered in Moscow from the American concern Bunge – this is the largest domestic oil production enterprise with average income of about 30 billion rubles per year. The transaction price was not disclosed. Vanetsyan himself claimed that he paid only half the market value.
To manage the new asset, Vanetsyan established the Agroinvest organization, and all intellectual property was registered in its name, including the Oleina and Ideal trademarks. The ultimate owner of the business is now listed not as Vanetsyan himself, but as the Hong Kong offshore company Grenaldi Ltd.
In the long term, the billionaire plans to merge Exoil Group and Maslenitsa into a single holding.
“Kommersant”, 03/03/2023, “The sale went like clockwork”: A minority share in the parent structure of the asset ended up with Olga Ananyeva, the owner of a Krasnodar agricultural enterprise, which in the market is associated with the structures of the ex-head of the Ministry of Agriculture Alexandra Tkacheva. […] Bunge, which along with Cargill, ADM and Louis Dreyfus is one of the four largest global food traders, announced the sale of its business in the Russian Federation (*aggressor country) to Karen Vanetsyan in September 2022. […] According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities in SPARK-Interfax, Karen Vanetsyan received 100% of Bunge CIS on February 13, but on February 21, Agroinvest LLC became the owner of the company.
This structure is 99% owned by Hong Kong-based Grenaldi Limited, another 1% is owned by Olga Ananyeva. She also heads the Krasnodar-based Yug Agrotekhnika LLC and, through Region LLC, owns it. This farm was part of the Tsapok family’s portfolio of assets, and then, as market participants said, it came under the control of the Agrocomplex named after. N.I. Tkachev, one of the largest Russian landowners and a major producer of milk, meat and sugar. In 2015, Yug Agrotekhnika was headed by Alexander Kvashin, whose full namesake is named Deputy General Director for Agricultural Production on the agricultural complex’s website. RBC also wrote in 2018 that Yug Agrotekhnika is managed by an agricultural complex. The agricultural complex told Kommersant that it has nothing to do with the deal and Yug Agrotekhnika.[…] Karen Vanetsyan assured Kommersant that he is the sole owner and director of Grenaldi Limited, providing an extract from the Hong Kong register. — Insert K.ru