Finance
Russian bank VTB to create agriculture giant from nationalised assets, CEO says
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on December 8, 2025
1 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
Global Banking and Finance Review
Company
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on December 8, 2025
1 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
VTB plans to create an agriculture giant from nationalized assets, focusing on grain processing. The assets were nationalized in 2023.
MOSCOW, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Russian's second-largest bank VTB plans to create a large agricultural holding from nationalized assets it had bought in the southern regions in December 2024, VTB's CEO Andrei Kostin told Reuters.
He said the new holding will focus on domestic processing of grains and other agricultural products and suggested that the company could be sold at a later stage.
"After all, we should develop high value-added products, not only processing oil but possibly grain as well," Kostinm said.
The assets were nationalised in 2023 after an arrest warrant was issued for its former owner Andrei Korovaiko, and his business partner, Arkady Chebanov, who were accused of corruption. Both are now living abroad.
The assets have been consolidated into a company, called Agrocomplex Labinski.
Labinski owns 240,000 hectares of land, producing grains, milk, sugar, and other agricultural products. The company says that it exports up to 400,000 metric tons of grains and oilseeds annually.
(Reporting by Elena Favrichnaya and Gleb BryanskiEditing by Bernadette Baum)
An agricultural holding refers to a unit of agricultural production, which can include land, buildings, and equipment used for farming and processing agricultural products.
Grain processing involves transforming raw grains into consumable products, such as flour or cereals, through various methods including milling, cooking, and packaging.
Export in agriculture refers to the sale of agricultural products to foreign countries, which can include grains, fruits, vegetables, and livestock, contributing to a country's economy.
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