The entitiy associated with N. Tkachev Agrocomplex (owned by the family of the Minister of Agriculture, Alexander Tkachev), can become the majority owner of Tambov Sugar Company. It builds the Mordovia Sugar Factory, with design capacity of 12 thousand tons per day, which would make it the largest in the country. With it, the Agrocomplex will be able to enter the top five on the Russian sugar market.

On December 29, the Federal Antimonopoly Service published its decision to satisfy the request of OO TambovSakharInvest to acquire 74% of OOO Tambov Sugar Company (TSC). TambovSaharInvest, as follows from the register, belongs to Vadim Antonov, the general director of OOO Tihoretskagroinvest and the owner of 0.1% in the company Pavlovsky Sugar Factory and OOO Agrofirma Pavlovskaya Plus. All three companies are part of N. Tkachev Agrocomplex, owned by the family of the Ministrer of Agriculture Alexander Tkachev. The interest of Agrocomplex to TSC was confirmed by Kommersant's source in the sugar industry. CEO of Agrocomplex, Yevgeny Khvorostina, declined to comment.

TSC is investor of the construction project of Mordovia Sugar Factory in the Tambov region. The planned processing capacity is 12 thousand tons of sugar beet per day, the volume of investments is more than 10 billion rubles. Now, according to the register, 73.99% owned of the TSC is owned by OOO Sakhar Chernozemya, whose sole owner is Artem Kuranov. The share of 25.01% belongs to the administration of the Tambov region, 1% to Rosselkhozbank. As reported by the Provincial Department of Agriculture, in late 2015, when the building was completed by 80%, the investor started looking for investments to complete the project. Chairman of the Union of Sugar Producers of Russia (Soyuzrossahar) Andrey Bodin believes that about 9 billion rubles are necessary to finish the construction. These funds are, in particular, necessary for the creation of storage capacity not provided for in the original project.

Yesterday, all attempts to contact the administration of the Tambov region and Mr. Kuranov failed. 

N. Tkachev Agrocomplex today manages Pavlovsky, Tikhoretsk Sugar Mills and Kristall Sugar Plant in the Krasnodar region. According to Sakhar Online, the total capacity of these enterprises is 13.4 thousand tons of sugar beet per day. Mordovia sugar factory with the designed capacity of 12 thousand tons will be the largest in Russia and is the first company in the industry built since 1983, said a leading expert of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR), Yevgeny Ivanov.

Today sugar market leader with a share of 24% is Promidex Holding owned by Igor Hudokormov: its plants, according to its own data, can process more than 70 tons of beets per day. The processing capacity of GC Dominat belonging to Pavel and Svetlana Demidovs, according to Agroinvestor, is 29,7 thousand tons per day. GC Rusagro of Vadim Moshkovich in 2015 processed 33.8 thousand tonnes per day, it said in itsr statements. If Agrocomplex gets the Mordovia plant, it will have the fourth place among the largest sugar producers, Mr. Ivanov said.

The entity related to Agrocomplex is going to invest in sugar producion amidst the domestic market saturation. According to Soyuzrossakhar, on December 29, 2016, more than 5.5 million tons of sugar beet from the current crop was produced in Russia, which is 500 thousand tons more than the same period of 2015. In the Krasnodar region, Belgorod, Voronezh and Tambov regions the plants capacities already exceed the needs by 5-15%, says Soyuzrossakhar. By 2020, the surplus on refining capacity can reach 18.4%. Because of this, believes Yevgeny Ivanov, about 15 from the 75 existing plants may be closed in Russia in 15 years.