Production Lareault, based on just over 450 acres at Lavaltrie, Que. — about 40 km northeast of Montreal, in the province’s Lanaudiere region — has been acquired by investors Antoine Casimir and Andrea Borodenko for an undisclosed sum.

The Lareault business produces multiple varieties of early-, mid- and late-season strawberry plants for commercial-scale, greenhouse and U-pick growers and garden centres as well as for backyard and balcony use.

The company also sells various varieties of raspberry, high- and lowbush blueberry, blackberry, cherry, haskap and other berry plants as well as asparagus and rhubarb, among others.

Owner/operators Luc and Lyne Lareault plan to retire from the business that’s been in family hands since 1953.

Casimir and Borodenko are the husband-and-wife operators of Greenlore, a Montreal venture capital and private equity firm with a focus on businesses in the agriculture, food and e-commerce sectors that are seeking partnerships for their growth or succession-planning phases.

Casimir was also previously a principal in Quebec private equity firm Novacap, with a focus on companies seeking either growth or exit strategies, while Borodenko previously worked for Montreal digital marketing firm Mediative.

The acquisition was backed with loans from Quebec pension fund Fonds de solidarite FTQ, financial co-operative Desjardins Group and Farm Credit Canada (FCC).

“The support of our financial partners was crucial to the deal’s success and to keeping the head office in Quebec,” Casimir and Borodenko said jointly in Thursday’s release.

“We are also delighted that all the employees will remain and that we can count on the support of Luc and Lyne Lareault to facilitate the transition,” they said. “Lareault is an excellent platform for our future projects, which will leverage the company’s enviable reputation for quality and innovation.”

Business transfers are a “major challenge” for small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), Fonds de solidarite FTQ CEO Janie C. Beique said in the same release, adding that “solutions exist for entrepreneurs who want to ensure the future of the company they’ve built and for buyers who want to contribute to our local economy.”

Desjardins vice-president Jean-Yves Bourgeois, in the same release, described the deal as
“excellent news for the agri-food sector,” adding that “a good plan, developed well in advance, helps owners anticipate how they will transfer the business to the next generation. But beyond purely financial matters, buyers and sellers need to be guided on a human level during this critical period.”

Luc Lareault, who will remain with the company through the transition, described the new owners as “dynamic Quebecers who know the market very well” and have “several meaningful projects in mind for the future.”

— Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Bill C-234, which passed the House of Commons in late March, remained on the Senate’s order paper for debate Wednesday afternoon, after adjournment Tuesday night without a vote on third reading of the bill — nor a vote on a proposed amendment from the Independent Senators Group (ISG).

The new amendment, put forward Nov. 9 by Ontario Senator Lucie Moncion — an ISG member appointed to the Senate in 2016 by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — would amend the bill’s proposed sunset clause so that after eight years, approval for an extension would require Parliament to pass a new bill.

Marc Gold, a non-affiliated senator who serves as the Liberal government’s representative in the Senate, was among those speaking Tuesday in favour of Moncion’s amendment.

Gold said that without Moncion’s proposed change, a review and extension of the bill’s proposed farm fuel exemptions beyond eight years “could proceed with a simple resolution passed in both chambers or by a decision of the executive branch, with no role for parliamentary scrutiny and oversight or committee examination and study.”

Senator Don Plett, leader of the opposition, called Moncion’s proposed amendment “frivolous” and said C-234, as was passed in the Commons, would already allow for a further extension to be initiated — and the length of that extension determined — only by the government, via an order-in-council.

A further extension also wouldn’t be granted unless approved by both the Commons and Senate, he added.

As written, C-234’s language for extending the time frame of its sunset clause “is not unique to this bill,” he said, citing a similar sunset clause for rail interswitching provisions in Bill C-30, the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act.

Rather, Plett said, by forcing a Senate-amended C-234 back to the Commons, “the only utility of this amendment is to carry the (Liberal) government’s water and defeat the bill.”

‘Intimidation’

Debate on C-234 was to continue Tuesday evening but Quebec Senator Raymonde Saint-Germain, also an ISG member and Trudeau appointee, rose at that time on a question of privilege, citing an incident on Nov. 9 which she said infringed on senators’ privilege “to conduct our business free from obstruction and intimidation.”

At the Nov. 9 session, she said, ISG Senator Bernadette Clement’s motion to adjourn debate on the proposed amendment was met with some Conservative senators “demonstrat(ing) physical and verbal intimidation directed at members of my group and myself.

“After violently throwing his earpiece, (Plett) stood before Senator Clement and me as we sat at our desks, yelling and berating us for proposing this routine motion that would see debate resume the following week, when we returned,” Saint-Germain said, adding that another Conservative senator, Michael MacDonald, shouted the word “fascists” at ISG senators.

Later, Saint-Germain said, “at least two” Conservative senators retweeted a post on social media platform X “that not only spread misinformation about the proceedings but encouraged members of the public to call and harass” Clement and Senator Chantal Petitclerc, adding that it “elicited high volumes of threatening phone calls and emails to these independent senators.”

Clement, speaking Tuesday evening to Saint-Germain’s question of privilege, said “Canadians deserve to know that adjournment doesn’t mean a bill is being nixed, but that nuanced explanation wasn’t offered by people pointing the finger at me.”

Senate Speaker Raymonde Gagne noted some senators who had been mentioned in Saint-Germain’s question of privilege weren’t present Tuesday evening, and said she would hear “brief additional arguments” on the matter on Thursday.

However, Conservative Senator David Wells then put forward a separate question of privilege stemming from the same Nov. 9 sitting, saying Moncion had “walked over from her seat and accused me of bullying” after the session was suspended.

Such an action, he said, “creates an atmosphere that may hinder any senator from even contemplating engaging in free debate, lest they be accused of bullying.”

Moncion replied that she was not threatening in her approach but wanted to call attention to a separate tweet from Wells alleging that Gagne, as speaker, “in concert with the ISG leadership has shut down debate” on C-234.

“Receiving a point of privilege was disappointing, but I understand where you’re coming from,” she said. “You want an apology from me, I apologize, Senator Wells, and I apologize in front of this whole chamber.”

Asked by Gagne if he wished to pursue the matter further, Wells replied that “given the debate and the open discussion we’ve had as well as my professional and personal regard for Senator Moncion, I consider this issue closed.”

Debate on Moncion’s amendment resumed briefly before the Senate adjourned for the day at 11 p.m. to resume at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Bill C-234, a private member’s bill sponsored by Ben Lobb, the Conservative MP for the southern Ontario riding of Huron-Bruce, passed third reading for adoption in the House of Commons on Wednesday by a vote of 176-146.

The bill, introduced in February last year, amends the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to extend the carbon price exemption for farmers’ eligible fuel purchases to also include purchases of marketable natural gas and propane.

The bill also expands the allowed uses of exempted fuels, to include grain drying systems as well as heating or cooling of farm structures directly involved in livestock or crop production, such as barns or greenhouses.

C-234 also includes a sunset clause which will see the exemption brought back in eight years for review, allowing whatever government is in place at that time to let it lapse — or to amend or extend it, if new technologies available at that time don’t yet warrant ending the exemption.

Private members’ bills — legislative and policy proposals brought forward by individual MPs rather than the governing party — rarely pass in the Commons but are more likely to gain traction in a minority government. A previous version of C-234, Bill C-206, died on the order paper before the 2021 federal election.

C-234 also drew support from several farmer and commodity groups, including 15 national organizations speaking under the banner of the Agriculture Carbon Alliance (ACA), a policy group set up in 2021 “to ensure that Canadian farmers’ sustainable practices are recognized.”

The ACA, on Twitter Wednesday, called the bill’s passage in the Commons “a huge step towards realizing the full potential of #CdnAg.”

Keith Currie, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture — an ACA member group — thanked Lobb and supporting MPs on Wednesday on Twitter, adding “Now let’s get it through the (Senate).”

Canadian Canola Growers Association vice-president and ACA chair Dave Carey on Wednesday also credited Lobb’s fellow Conservative MP John Barlow, Liberal MP and Commons standing ag committee chair Kody Blois, NDP ag critic Alistair MacGregor and Bloc Quebecois ag critic Yves Perron for “outstanding leadership” on the file.

In a separate release Tuesday, Andre Harpe, chair of ACA member Grain Growers of Canada, said that “by extending the exemption for qualifying farming fuels to natural gas and propane, this amendment will unlock innovation and drive sustainable growth in the sector.”

“Farmers incur a carbon price when using natural gas and propane for necessary farming practices such as grain drying, land irrigation, and heating or cooling their barns,” GGC said in Tuesday’s release. “As there are no viable alternatives, pricing these activities does not provide a signal to lower emissions from these sources.”

C-234, GGC said, “will allow farmers to invest in practices that drive innovation and new efficiencies that reduce fuel usage by putting money back in their hands.”

MORE READING: Finding ways to maximize grain drying efficiency

The eight-year sunset clause was added at the standing ag committee last November. That clause, Barlow said at the time, is a reflection of Canadian farmers’ confidence that new and sustainable technologies will come forward to replace the gas- and propane-fired options they now use to dry grain and heat barns.

Separately on Wednesday, the federal government announced $22.2 million has been allocated to another 45 projects under its Agricultural Clean Technology (ACT) Program – Adoption Stream, related to “adopting more efficient grain drying technology.”

That brings the adoption stream’s allocations so far to over $37.1 million across 99 grain dryer projects across Canada, the government said in a release.

The adoption stream of the $495.7 million ACT is budgeted for $60 million in all, including $50 million for purchase and installation of more efficient grain dryers and $10 million for “fuel switching initiatives.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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C-234, a private member’s bill sponsored by southwestern Ontario Conservative MP Ben Lobb, appeared before the Commons’ standing committee on agriculture and agri-food on Monday and was reported back to the Commons.

According to Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO), the bill — which had its first reading Feb. 7 and second reading May 18 — is now expected to come up for third reading during the House’s winter session before moving on to the Senate.

C-234 carries amendments to the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act which expand that legislation’s definition of eligible farming machinery to include grain dryers as well as barn heating and cooling systems, and which extend the exemption for farming fuels to include farmers’ purchases of natural gas and propane.

“This exemption is needed to reflect the realities of the entire Canadian agriculture industry and the undue financial burden the carbon tax places on all the necessary practices undertaken by farmers and ranchers like drying grain, irrigating crops, or heating and cooling livestock barns,” Conservative MP and opposition ag critic John Barlow said in a release Wednesday.

The standing ag committee on Monday did pass several amendments to Lobb’s bill, tightening its scope.

Those include a sunset clause — which Barlow said is a reflection of Canadian farmers’ confidence that new and sustainable technologies will come forward to replace the gas- and propane-fired options they now use to dry grain and heat barns.

That sunset clause will see the exemption brought back in a set period of time for review, allowing whatever government is in place at that time to let it lapse — or to amend or extend it if the available technologies don’t yet warrant ending the exemption.

Barlow’s original amendment called for a 10-year sunset clause, but committee members later voted to shorten that period to the bill’s eight-year anniversary — citing testimony the committee heard suggesting such technology would be available sooner rather than later.

Another approved amendment will limit the exemption’s use in farm buildings, to only include those structures directly involved in crop or livestock production, such as barns or greenhouses.

‘Critical issue’

Grain and livestock producer groups have since lined up to cheer the bill’s return to the Commons, urge MPs of all parties to approve its passage and call for Canada’s Senate to do the same.

“It is clear that (ag committee) MPs understand the lack of current alternatives for grain drying and the need to provide an exemption until viable technological solutions are developed,” GFO chair Brendan Byrne said Tuesday in a separate release.

With “no viable fuel alternatives” available for the practices covered in C-234, imposing carbon pricing on those activities “does not provide a signal to lower emissions from these sources,” Grain Growers of Canada said Wednesday in another release.

Instead, GGC said, C-234 “will put money back into the hands of farmers so that they can continue to invest in practices that drive innovation, further efficiencies and reduce fuel usage.”

“With rising input costs, inflation and supply chain shortages, carbon surcharges on necessary farm activities adds an additional burden and pulls capital away from critical investments,” GGC chair Andre Harpe said in the same release.

The Agricultural Carbon Alliance, a body representing the GGC and 14 other national-level grain, livestock and general farm groups, said Wednesday that with the bill approaching third reading, it now plans to launch a public advocacy campaign “that will call for a bipartisan consensus on this critical issue.”

Fram group representatives appearing before the ag committee echoed many of the same concerns. “We understand that the carbon price is a market signal for producers to adopt low-emission energy alternatives wherever possible, but over the past year that signal has been dwarfed by skyrocketing costs for inputs such as fertilizer, gasoline and diesel,” Canadian Federation of Agriculture vice-president Todd Lewis said at the committee’s Oct. 24 meeting.

“Even when fuel prices aren’t at record highs, farmers constantly seek to increase fuel efficiency wherever possible.”

However, another speaker, University of Saskatchewan associate professor Tristan Skolrud, cautioned the committee at the same meeting that C-234 runs the risk of further drawing out the timeline for development of viable alternatives.

With “limited changes in producer behaviour, there will be limited reductions in (greenhouse gas) emissions from grain drying before greener alternatives become available,” he said.

“The development of greener alternatives will require significant private capital, and if grain drying is unregulated, the signal to private capital will be lost. Previous testimony on this amendment suggests that sufficient alternatives are at least 10 years away.

“Keep in mind that this estimate is a function of the carbon price. A higher price will shorten that time frame if private capital senses a profitable opportunity.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Aurora Cannabis on Aug. 25 announced a subsidiary is buying a 50.1 per cent stake in Bevo Agtech, the parent of vegetable and ornamental plant producer Bevo Farms — which in turn is buying Aurora Cannabis’ Aurora Sky grow facility at Edmonton, to convert to “non-cannabis” use.

Publicly-traded, Edmonton-based Aurora said it had paid about $45 million cash to Bevo’s selling shareholders on closing of the deal, with up to another $12 million in Aurora stock to follow over the next three years depending on “certain financial milestones” being reached at Bevo’s Site One facility at Langley, B.C.

On the other side of the deal, Bevo is to pay up to $25 million to Aurora over time for the Aurora Sky facility — in Leduc County, near Edmonton International Airport — based on “certain financial milestones” being reached at that site.

Bevo is billed as one of the biggest suppliers of propagated vegetables — mainly tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and eggplants — and ornamental plants in North America.

The company today grows greenhouse seedlings, field crop seedlings and floral plants on 63 acres of greenhouse space at Langley, Aldergrove and Pitt Meadows in B.C.’s Fraser Valley.

Bevo’s management team will remain “significant” shareholders in that company and will embark on a “robust” growth plan, including the use of Aurora Sky to grow orchids and propagate vegetables.

Aurora Cannabis, which has shuttered multiple production sites in several provinces in the recent years, had announced in May it would close the Aurora Sky site by its third quarter in 2023.

At that time, Aurora Sky — purpose-built in 2018 as the largest cannabis production facility in the world — was operating at just 25 per cent of capacity, the company said.

Aurora CEO Miguel Martin, in the company’s Aug. 25 announcement, said the deal with Bevo to repurpose Aurora Sky will save “significant costs previously expected in connection with the wind-down and sale of the facility.”

Aurora, he said, expects its investment in — and collaboration with — Bevo to “drive significant shareholder value and synergies for both parties.”

Bevo CEO Leo Benne, in the same release, said expanding into Alberta “allows us to significantly expand Bevo’s addressable market,” by boosting its production capability, extending its shipping range and accessing “new regional greenhouse demand” in both Canada and the U.S.

Also, he said, Bevo is “incredibly happy that the Aurora team is committed to keeping all of our facilities dedicated to our customer base, and to expanding our operations into Alberta through the addition of the Aurora Sky facility.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The company also said it no longer plans to open a third greenhouse in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

Canopy had said last month it aims to focus on reducing costs, as it struggles with a slump in weed prices from oversupply and growing expenses.

More than a year after Canada legalized recreational weed, most producers have failed to turn profitable because of fewer-than-expected retail stores and oversupply issues, while a cash crunch threatens the survival of many companies.

— Reporting for Reuters by Neha Malara in Bangalore.

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“Many of the cannabis producers are very cash rich. They’ve got the resources to pay a very good wage,” said Andrew Morse, head of the Flowers Canada industry group.

Canada’s greenhouse, nursery and floriculture sectors employ 16 percent of all workers in Canadian agriculture. The industry has been grappling with a tight labor supply for years, and the current record low national unemployment rate is compounding the problem.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government legalized cannabis in October 2018 and the industry has been rapidly expanding. The emerging sector, farm groups say, is posing a new challenge for traditional greenhouse growers.

The skills required for working in greenhouses – whether growing cannabis or flowers or vegetables – are similar.

Even before cannabis was legalized, the horticulture industry lost C$100 million ($76 million) after 2,800 jobs went unfilled in 2014, the Canadian Agriculture Human Resource Council (CAHRC) said, citing the latest data available. That gap is expected to grow to 7,500 workers by 2025, CAHRC said.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, is home to two-thirds of the country’s greenhouse, nursery and floriculture industry. The province’s flower sector is the third-largest in North America, behind California and Florida, growing about C$800 million in flowers each year, Morse said.

The lure of cannabis is not only a higher wage, but also the fact that it is a rapidly growing new industry, said Justine Taylor, a manager of the Ontario association that represents tomato, cucumber and pepper growers.

“It’s an exciting new field, it’s very attractive to young people, especially, (those) trying to get into the sector,” Taylor said.

Statistics Canada said last year that the cannabis sector was a “budding source of employment,” with some 10,400 workers in November 2018, just after legalization, a 266% increase from a year earlier. There is no cannabis labor data yet for 2019.

Last year, the average hourly wage for employees in cannabis-related jobs was C$29.58, almost 10 percent higher than the national average, Statscan said.

The most acute labor gaps are in middle management, Taylor said, so greenhouse operators are “putting a lot more resources into recruiting,” including overseas.

Greenhouses may also need to “lean more heavily on foreign worker programs or they might have to look for ways to incentivize the local population to take on more of those jobs,” Morse said. Foreign workers account for 28% of the sector’s employees, with many farms relying on a federal program that brings in seasonal, low-skilled labor.

Some farms are also making significant investments in automation technology to combat the labor shortfalls, he said.

Another knock-on effect of the cannabis boom is a shortage of tradesmen.

“We’re all kind of fighting for the same trades people, the same repair people,” said Linda Delli Santi, head of the Greenhouse Growers Association in British Columbia. “Even if you’re building a new greenhouse, getting all the trades on site are often difficult because those people are busy with cannabis operations, too.”

($1 = 1.3166 Canadian dollars)

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The ban, championed by environmental activists, covers the use of three active substances — imidacloprid, developed by Bayer CropScience; clothianidin, developed by Takeda Chemical Industries and Bayer CropScience; and Syngenta’s thiamethoxam.

“All outdoor uses will be banned and the neonicotinoids in question will only be allowed in permanent greenhouses where exposure of bees is not expected,” the European Commission said in a statement.

Representatives of EU member states in the EC’s standing committee on plants, animals, food and feed on Friday supported the proposal for a new regulation to be adopted by the EC “in the coming weeks” and applicable “by the end of the year.”

Vytenis Andriukaitis, the EC’s commissioner for health and food safety, hailed the results of Friday’s vote, saying the EC “had proposed these measures months ago, on the basis of the scientific advice from the European Food Safety Authority.”

Bee health, he said, “remains of paramount importance for me since it concerns biodiversity, food production and the environment.”

Bayer called the ban “a sad day for farmers and a bad deal for Europe” and said it would not help bees. Many farmers, it said, had no other way of controlling pests and that the result was more spraying and a return to older, less effective chemicals.

The use of neonics in the European Union has been restricted to certain crops since 2013, but environmental groups have called for a total ban and sparked a debate across the continent about the wider use of chemicals in farming.

Campaign group Friends of the Earth described the decision of EU governments a “tremendous victory” for bees and for the environment.

“The European Commission must now focus on developing a strong pollinator initiative that boosts bee-friendly habitat and helps farmers cut pesticide use,” it said.

Both Bayer and Syngenta have challenged the 2013 partial ban at the European Court of Justice. A verdict is due on May 17.

Bayer, in a separate move Thursday, announced it would sell its clothianidin-based seed treatment brands Poncho and VOTiVO to fellow German chemical firm BASF.

The brands are part of a $2.65 billion asset sale to help clear the regulatory path for Bayer’s planned takeover of seed and ag chem firm Monsanto.

In Canada, two of the three neonics in question, clothianidin and thiamethoxam, are up for renewal of their conditional registrations as seed treatments and foliar- and soil-applied pesticides in field crops.

Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency in December proposed to renew those registrations to the end of 2019.

For imidacloprid, PMRA in November proposed a three- to five-year phase-out of all agricultural uses and a “majority of other outdoor uses” of the product, citing the chemical’s presence in waterways at levels harmful to aquatic insects.

Final decisions from the PMRA on both proposals are due later this year.

— Reporting for Reuters by Philip Blenkinsop; includes files from AGCanada.com Network staff.

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Vancouver-based Village Farms announced Tuesday it has partnered with Victoria-based medical cannabis producer/processor Emerald Health Therapeutics in a 50/50 joint venture to grow cannabis for medical use and, pending changes to federal marijuana legislation, the “non-therapeutic adult use market.”

Emerald has pledged $20 million in cash to the venture, while Village Farms will “initially” contribute a 25-acre greenhouse at Delta, B.C., to be converted to cannabis production, and leased to the joint venture with an option to buy.

The joint venture also has options to lease or buy Village Farms’ other two Delta greenhouses: a 25-acre facility and a 60-acre facility, both “adjacent” to the leased greenhouse.

Village Farms, in a release, described the j.v. as a “transformational opportunity… to grow a substantially more profitable agricultural product.”

That said, the company, which grows tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and eggplant hydroponically at seven greenhouse sites in B.C. and Texas, emphasized Tuesday it “remains committed to its existing greenhouse produce business and customers.”

Once full licensing and the greenhouse’s conversion for cannabis production are completed, the Delta site, at its current size, is expected to yield up to 75,000 kilograms of “product” per year, the company said Tuesday.

Taking up the other two Delta greenhouses, they said, could allow them to expand operations up to 4.8 million square feet and dial their yield up over 300,000 kg of product per year.

At that scale, they said, the facility “would supply a considerable portion of the expected future cannabis demand in Canada or for export abroad.”

Village Farms CEO Michael DeGiglio said the company’s “conservative” market pricing forecasts and yield projections could generate revenue of “10 to 15 times that of our current Canadian vegetable production, with EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) margins potentially expanding to more than 50 per cent compared with our current Canadian vegetable margins.”

The joint venture’s goal, the companies said, is to be the “lowest-cost, highest-quality cannabis producer in Canada,” with a targeted production cost of less than $1 per gram.

From Emerald’s standpoint, the deal “strategically positions” it for “rapid production capacity expansion in partnership with world-class greenhouse operators, preparing it for the future non-therapeutic market and existing undersupplied medical cannabis market.”

Emerald, a TSX Venture Exchange-listed firm, brings “significant cannabis industry experience” to the table, they said, including “high-quality genetics and refined standard operating procedures” plus a “flawless” record of operations under Health Canada’s current medical marijuana regulations.

Emerald’s executive chairman Avtar Dhillon hailed Village Farms as “an expert in the complex matter of safety for agricultural consumables, which is a critical competency in the production of cannabis.”

The joint venture plans to “immediately” start the process to get a Health Canada license to grow medical cannabis and, at the same time, start converting their leased greenhouse for cannabis cultivation.

Emerald said it will also still develop the first phase of its own indoor growing operation, a 50,000-square foot facility on a 32-acre site in B.C.’s Lower Mainland, and expects to complete that phase’s construction by the first quarter of 2018. — AGCanada.com Network

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Share sales by Russian companies have been rare since Western sanctions imposed in 2014 over Ukraine cut access to foreign capital markets and after a sharp drop in global oil prices, the lifeblood of the country’s economy, cooled interest in Russia’s assets.

Rusagro, which produces sugar, pork and fats and has ambitious expansion plans, is the first Russian company to try to sell new shares in about six months, since retailer Lenta raised US$150 million in October 2015.

In February, a unit of China Investment Corporation sold its stake in Moscow Exchange on the market and lender Promsvyazbank started this month book building for a share placement by an existing shareholder.

“We are counting on foreign investors,” a source close to Rusagro’s offering said.

Rusagro said that Vadim Moshkovich, its controlling beneficial shareholder, planned to purchase up to around US$100 million of newly issued global depositary receipts.

State-backed Russian Direct Investment Fund was also rumoured to buy into the issue, a financial market source said without providing details.

Shares in Rusagro have risen by 220 per cent over the past two years as the company ramped up output and revenues, helped by import restrictions and higher sugar prices.

Rusagro intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for funding of investment projects, including a pig breeding complex in Russia’s Far East and greenhouse facilities in central Russia, it said in a statement.

It also plans to modernize the recently acquired Razgulay sugar plants and may make more acquisitions, it said.

J.P. Morgan, UBS and VTB Capital are acting as joint global coordinators and bookrunners in connection with the offering.

A financial market source said the bookbuilding will be completed on April 27 with pricing on April 28.

— Reporting for Reuters by Olga Popova in Moscow. Additional reporting and writing for Reuters by Maria Kiselyova.

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