Yug Rusi, Russia's largest edible oil producer, has secured a 146.5 million euro ($184.4 million) loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to help modernise its plant, the bank said.
The EBRD said in a statement the loan would also provide working capital as well as helping Yug Rusi to refinance existing debt, identify new sources of raw materials and expand geographically from its southern Russian base of Rostov-on-Don.
The bank said late on Tuesday it would finance 50 percent of the loan through its own means. The other half would be fully underwritten by ABN Amro and syndicated to other commercial banks in the next few weeks. Yug Rusi, established in 1993 as a grains trader and flour mill operator, grows grain on more than 200,000 hectares of land in the southern Russian regions of Rostov, Volgograd and Krasnodar, the company says on its Web site, www.grain.ru.
The company is a leading Russian agricultural holding, producing sunflower oil and exporting grain. Russia's Kommersant business daily reported on Tuesday that Yug Rusi was close to acquiring the oilseed crushing business of rival Russian agro-industrial firm Rusagro.