Russia Nationalizes Its Largest Pasta Producer

• 8.05.2024, 17:26

This is one of the world leaders.

The Russian authorities continue their course towards the creeping nationalization of large private business assets, despite the assurances of President Vladimir Putin that there will be no revision of the results of the privatization of the 1990s in the country. Following 15 defense plants and another three hundred enterprises worth more than a trillion Russian rubles, Makfa JSC, the country’s largest producer of pasta, became state property.

On Wednesday, the Central District Court of Chelyabinsk granted the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office to convert all assets of Makfa and its affiliated companies into state income, lawyer Igor Trunov told Interfax.

In the lawsuit, the Prosecutor General's Office argued that Makfa and a dozen other enterprises, including Smak and Chelyabinskoblgaz, should be nationalized because their beneficiaries, Mikhail Yurevich and Vadim Belousov, carried out business activities while simultaneously working in government agencies.

For years, the defendants used their high positions “to pursue their own business interests,” violating prohibitions and restrictions established by anti-corruption laws, prosecutors emphasized. Thus, Yurevich was a State Duma deputy from 2000 to 2005, headed Chelyabinsk until 2010, and later, until 2014, the Chelyabinsk region. Belousov was a deputy of three convocations of the State Duma from 2011 to 2023.

JSC Makfa is one of the top 5 global producers of pasta and is included in the list of systemically important enterprises of the Russian agro-industrial complex. The Prosecutor General's Office estimated the capitalization of Makfa's assets at 22 billion rubles, and that of the First Bread Factory at 3.7 billion rubles. According to the department, the annual revenue of both enterprises exceeds 31 billion rubles.