agricultural holding The Razgulay is ready to buy back shares from shareholders at 9.4 rubles. for the paper, the group said in a statement. This is a mechanism provided by law to protect the rights of shareholders who may, for example, disagree with the alienation of assets, says Mark Karetin, partner at Yukov and Partners. As follows from the Razgulaya report, those who vote against major transactions or do not take part in the voting scheduled for February 16 will be able to demand the redemption of securities. The holding's representative refused to explain what exactly these transactions were: their parameters will be published closer to the date of the shareholders' meeting, he limited himself.

We are talking about the sale of Razgulay’s assets, a person close to the company believes. As Sergei Tribunsky, general director of Razgulay, told Interfax in October 2015, the sale of some of them had already been approved by the group’s board. It includes four representatives from the new main creditor and major shareholder of the company - the Rusagro group Vadim Moshkovich, including Tribunsky. He is also the latter's director of investor relations.

Other assets may be sold because Rusagro is only interested in sugar factories in Central Russia, VTB Capital analysts suggested in a review dated November 13. Their colleagues from Sberbank CIB also pointed to Rusagro’s interest in 100,000 hectares of land for growing sugar beets.

At the end of November 2015, 31% of Razgulay shares were in free circulation on the Moscow Exchange (the company’s own data). At the end of the year, Rusagro bought another 20% from Vnesheconombank. In addition, among the largest shareholders of Razgulay as of September 30 were Cypriot Chandlor (7.6%), Atonline (9.9%), Amoril Holding (9.6%), Olfrin Associates (8.2%) and Tapsaw Invest (7.1%), according to the group’s report for the third quarter of 2015 (no later data available). Previously, Razgulay reported in quarterly reports that all of them were controlled by AVG CIS Agricultural Opportunities Fund. The remaining 13.9% is in treasury and quasi-treasury shares.

The price that Razgulay will pay to dissenting shareholders is 25.7% lower than the average price for the group’s securities in 2015 and 2.9% higher than on Monday, January 11, at the close of the stock exchange. If all free float shares are offered for redemption, the company may need RUB 1.54 billion for this. The representative of Razgulay declined to comment on how many requests from shareholders the agricultural holding is willing to satisfy and whether it has the money for this. According to the law on joint stock companies, no more than 10% of the value of Razgulay’s net assets can be used for repurchase; the group does not disclose its size.

If the repurchase is carried out at the price stated by Razgulayem, then this will be a good opportunity for shareholders to sell their portfolio, says Sberbank CIB analyst Artur Galimov. AVG has not yet made a decision whether to exit Razgulay’s capital, said Rustem Mirgalimov, managing partner of the investment fund.