JFC Group

JFC Group fails to oust bankruptcy administrator

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The JFC Group has failed in its efforts to oust its bankruptcy administrator in the St. Petersburg Commercial Court.

JFC Group is currently involved in a court supervised bankruptcy procedure.

The creditor, Raiffeisen Bank, claimed that Dmitry Bubnov, the temporary administrator of the fruit company, has twice failed to submit the regular performance reports required by the court as well as his analysis of the debtor’s fiscal status.

However, according to the court, the bank has not presented any evidence showing that Bubnov has been negligent, as claimed by the bank. Raiffeisen claimed that Bubnov’s inaction has entailed, or could have entailed, losses for the debtor and the creditors.

The group’s major creditors include the Bank of Moscow, Sberbank, Promsvyazbank, Uralsib Bank, and Raiffeisen Bank.

Source: www.freshplaza.com

JFC CEO in fraud investigation

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The home of JFC CEO, Vladimir Kekhman has been searched as part of a fraud case, Russian media reported on Friday. Kekhman holds the majority stake in JFC, the largest fruit importer in Russia.
Investigators from the Interior Ministry’s St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region Department have also searched the company’s offices and warehouses on Thursday.
“In 2010-2012, a group of JFC executives and shareholders obtained large loans from several major banks to fulfill contracts with nonexistent commercial firms and affiliates. In February 2012, JFC’s management filed for bankruptcy with a commercial court, so as not to pay back these loans,” the investigators said.
The damages done to the company’s creditors are estimated at over 10 billion rubles (over $331 million), they said.
A criminal case was opened after a complaint was filed by the company’s primary creditors, including Sberbank, Bank of Moscow, Raiffeisen, and Uralsib, a source at the Interior Ministry told Vedomosti.
A Sberbank representative confirmed the filing of the complaint with the ministry and estimated JFC’s total debt at roughly 6 billion rubles (over $198 million).
Other creditors refused to comment. Kekhman did not respond to a Vedomosti request for information.

Source: www.freshplaza.com

Russian largest fruit importer declared bankrupt in London

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According to the Russian newspaper Commersant, the founder of Russia’s largest fruit importer JFC Vladimir Kekhman was declared bankrupt by the London Court. At the moment, neither Russian nor Western creditors can not reclaim his foreign assets. This is a precedent: it is the first time for a Russian businessman who owes $ 1.3 billion to banks, to seek protection from banks in foreign courts. Lawyers believe that Mr. Kekhman decided to avoid the fate of Shalva Chigirinsky, whose creditors managed to seize all the personal property of the developer: real estate in London and Monaco, and even his watch.

The information that Vladimir Kekhman was declared bankrupt as an individual can be found at the UK Register of personal bankruptcy. It also states that “the individual details of the bankruptcy case are taken from the order of the High Court of Justice, which made this decision on Oct. 5, 2012.”

Vladimir Kekhman declined to give any comment yesterday. Banks creditors of JFC group, of which Mr. Kekhman is the founder and owner of the largest share, got to know about the bankruptcy from “Commersant”, and could not yet give a comment on the information. As previously reported, in March of the current year, the managing company of JFC had been declared bankrupt. The total debt of Russian legal entities entering the JFC, including fines and penalties make 38.5 billion rubles ($ 1.3 billion) up to the present day. Major creditors of the group are Sberbank, Bank of Moscow, PSB and “Uralsib” banks. Totally, in the courts of the Russian jurisdiction there are more than a dozen lawsuits against JFC and its subsidiaries to recover overdue debts.
JFC is one of the largest Russian importers of fruit, including bananas brand Bonanza!. According to its own data, it takes up to 40% of the Russian market of bananas. The main shareholder of JFC Group with a share of 80.09% is a Cyprus company Huntleigh Investments Ltd, owned by the head of the Mikhailovsky Theatre Vladimir Kekhman.

Total revenue of CJSC “JFC Group” in the first half of 2011 was 5.6 billion rubles ($ 200 million, 11% more over the same period in 2010), the net profit was equal to 45.5 million rubles ($ 1.6 million, 85% by 2010).

Source: www.fruitnews.ru

Fruit and Vegetable Business in Russia in 2012: will the Predictions Bear Fruit?

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ITE company, organizer of World Food Moscow 2012 exhibition, and Fruit-Inform, company which provides information and analysis of CIS fruit and vegetable market, announce that the Fifth International Conference, which is called “Fruit and Vegetable Business in Russia in 2012”, will be held on September 18, 2012.

This conference has already become the traditional meeting place for professionals from different countries, who deal with fruit and vegetable growing, storage, processing and wholesale and retail trade of these products.

The fact that this conference will take place during World Food Moscow 2012, one of the largest food exhibitions in Russia and CIS, allows all participants to derive the maximum benefit from it. During the exhibition, the negotiations with suppliers and customers will be held; and during the conference, all the participants will receive the exclusive market information from the leading experts in this field; and also they will have the opportunity to meet them and discuss all the questions face to face.

This year the conference is especially relevant and important because of two major events: the expected entry of Russia into the WTO and the bankruptcy of JFC company, the largest importer of fruits and vegetables in Russia.

The consequences of Russia’s entry into the WTO may change the geography of fresh vegetables and fruits supply, while bankruptcy of JFC Group may give a unique opportunity to different market operators – both importers and supermarket chains – to increase their market share. Besides, this year the price forecast of Fruit-Inform will be of great interest, as the last year the forecast of collapse of vegetables and potatoes prices and price decrease of apples worked by 100%! Of course, other important topics of Russian fruit and vegetable industry will be covered.

To participate in the conference “Fruit and Vegetable Business in Russia in 2012” it is necessary to fill out an application.

The information about the conference is on the site www.world-food.ru.

Source: www.world-food.ru

The JFC Group has approved CJSC “Opera” as auditor for the year 2011

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The 19-th of September the special stockholder’s meeting of the CJSC “JFC Group” (St-Petersburg) has made a decision to make the audit work of the CJSC for the year 2011.

The audit work will be held by CJSC “Opera”.

Since the 1-st of January 2007 the main activity of the JFC Group has been the wholesale of the agricultural produce.

The JFC Group was founded in 1994. It is one of the vertically-integrated holdings in the sphere of fruit production and selling. Today the JFC Group unites companies of fruit production, purchasing, storage, transportation and realization.

The part of the Group of Companies JFC in the whole volume of bananas supplied to Russia makes about 25 %, and about 10% from the whole fruit import volume.

Source: www.fruitnews.ru

New Player in the Russian Fruit Market

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ZAO “Aysel”, which belongs to the Azerbaijani businessman Elchin Akhmedov, acquired the active assets of “Sorus” – one of the pre-crisis fruit import leaders in St. Petersburg, which controlled 10% of the Russian fruit and vegetables market. Before the recession the three largest fruit importers in Russia were St. Petersburg holding companies: JFC (owner – Vladimir Kekhman), Sunway (owner – Shalmi Benyaminov) and Sorus (owner – Valeriy Linetskiy). Before 2008 they had controlled 42% of the market. During the economic breakdown Sunway and Sorus went bankrupt and JFC increased its market share from 23 to 29%.

Source: www.fruitnews.ru

JFC Group Has the New President

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25 April 2011 Andrey Afanasyev becomes the new president of JFC Group. A.S. Afanasyev hold the position of vice-president for more than ten years, he was responsible for expansion and marketing and contributed substantially to the successful development of the company. Andrey Afanasyev created new production facilities in Ecuador and Costa-Rica, organized distribution chain in Russia.

The Board of Directors has already set the new ambitious goals for the next few years. The company is supposed to enter the new perspective markets, broaden its sales network in Russia and increase production by expanding to the new countries.

Source: www.fruitnews.ru

JFC Group Draws USD 138m as Syndicated Loan

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The loan represents a credit line for 3.5 years, subject to depreciation, which amounts to USD 88m and RUB 1.5b. The loan was drawn to finance the general corporate goals of the Group’s companies and investment programs, such as further expansion in Central and South America and construction of new logistics centres in 15 Russian cities.
As a result of the investment strategy JFC Group plans to strengthen its leadership on the Russian banana market. The leading position is supposed to be supported not only by import volumes, but also by the possibility to ensure, that consumers all over Russia are provided with high-quality produce.

Source: www.fruitnews.ru

JFC Group ‘records major loss’

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Russian fruit and vegetable importer Joint Fruit Company (JFC) Group has reportedly recorded a major revenue drop to RUB 8.18bn (EUR 19.3m) for the first nine months of 2010 (a 6% fall in compared with the same period a year before).

Reports also indicated that JFC,  which is well-known in the country for its Bonanza banana brand, suffered a loss of more than RUB 253m (EUR 5.98m) during the nine months, compared with a profit of RUB 153m (EUR 3.62m) a year before.

Based in St Petersburg, JFC has operations spread across Russia, maintaining offices and logistics terminals in Moscow, Novosibirsk, Krasnodar, Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Kazan and Nizhniy Novgorod. In addition, the group operates production subsidiaries in Ecuador, Costa Rica and Cyprus.

Source: www.fruitnet.com

Joint Fruit Company ranks 95 among Russia’s largest non-public companies

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September 24, Forbes Magazine named Russia’s 200 largest non-public companies. Fruit importer JFC Group ranked 95 out of 200, which reflects a substantial strengthening of its position on the Russian market.  Last year it took the 146 place in the list.
22 September, newspaper Delovoy Peterburg published the list of the largest holding companies of St. Petersburg. JFC Group ranked 26 among them.

Source: www.fruitnews.ru