We have reached the "Open Spaces": VTB has found a buyer for its agricultural assets
One of the largest transactions in recent years took place on the agricultural asset market: VTB Group sold the Labinsky agricultural holding to the structures of the Prostory company, Izvestia learned. The amount amounted to about 50 billion rubles. The acquisition will allow Expanses to increase its share in the agricultural processing market, as well as increase the total land bank to 667 thousand hectares. According to this indicator, the agroholding will rise to the sixth place among the largest owners of agricultural land in Russia, ahead of EkoNiva, Bio-Ton and Steppe.
What is known about the deal
VTB Group has agreed to sell Labinsky agricultural holding to the structures of Prostory agricultural holding. This was told to Izvestia by a top manager of a large agro-industrial company, an investment banker and a source in a large agricultural holding company familiar with the situation from the words of the participants in the transaction. According to one of the interlocutors, the deal took place in mid-September, its amount was about 50 billion rubles.
A VTB representative declined to comment. Izvestia sent a request to a representative of the Expanses. Boris Dyshlyuk, the company's CEO, did not respond to questions.
Labinsky manages the former assets of the Pokrovsky Concern, one of the largest agro—industrial enterprises in southern Russia. The main owners of the concern were Andrey Korovaiko and Arkady Chebanov. In October 2023, the Labinsk City Court of the Krasnodar Territory granted the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office on the conversion of the concern's property into state revenue. The supervisory authority insisted on the corrupt origin of the assets, but Korovaiko denied the accusations of wrongdoing. Later, the management of Pokrovsky enterprises was transferred to Agrocomplex Labinsky LLC.
Key assets are located in the Krasnodar Territory. The holding's enterprises grow cereals, sugar beet, sunflower and other agricultural crops, as well as engage in dairy farming and meat processing. At the time of the acquisition, the holding included 18 crop and livestock enterprises, five grain elevators, three sugar factories, three meat processing plants and two pig farms.
According to the audit and consulting company BEFL, in May 2026, the agricultural holding's land bank amounted to 218 thousand hectares. According to this indicator, Labinsky ranked 28th among the largest owners of agricultural land in Russia. The company's consolidated financial statements are not disclosed. By the end of 2025, the revenue of Agrocomplex Labinsky LLC according to RAS reached 2.6 billion rubles, 2.5 times more than a year earlier. Net profit increased 11.5 times, to 224.4 million rubles.
VTB announced the acquisition of Labinsky in December 2024. The bank considered the asset as an investment asset and expected to sell it at a profit later, a representative of the group told Vedomosti. The purchase price was not disclosed.
In April 2026, VTB CEO Andrey Kostin announced his intention to sell all the group's agricultural assets and announced that there were several applicants for the agricultural complex. At the end of August, Dmitry Pyanov, first Deputy chairman of the bank's management board, said that the credit institution had already signed a preliminary agreement on the terms of the sale of Labinsky, but did not name the buyer. The Group expected to complete the deal by the end of the year.
Prostory unites enterprises in the Rostov, Nizhny Novgorod and Voronezh regions, Krasnodar and Stavropol territories, according to the holding's website. It includes AFG National, one of the leading Russian producers of cereals, which calls itself the largest rice producer in the country. The Group is also engaged in the cultivation of cereals and oilseeds, animal husbandry and meat processing. Prostory does not publish consolidated financial statements. According to calculations by the AK&M agency, the total revenue of the holding's enterprises in 2025 amounted to 58.7 billion rubles, which is 10.5% less than a year earlier. Instead of a net profit of 1.6 billion rubles a year earlier, the group received a loss of 1.6 billion rubles. Officially, the beneficiaries of the "Expanses" are not disclosed. Kommersant, citing a source close to the company, wrote that the holding company was acting in the interests of the structures of the former president of UGMK Iskandar Makhmudov.
In 2024, Prostory expanded its assets by acquiring the enterprises of the Don Agro group in the Rostov region and gaining control of the Zarechnoye marbled beef producer. In July 2025, JSC Maloorlovskoye, part of the holding company, acquired the Grain Don group, which controls about 64 thousand hectares of agricultural land in the Rostov region.
How will the deal strengthen Prostor's presence in the agricultural market
According to experts, the deal could become one of the largest in the Russian agro-industrial complex over the past few years. By acquiring Labinsky, Prostory continues to expand its business, says Ilya Bereznyuk, Managing Partner of Agro and Food Communications. According to him, creating a comparable agricultural holding from scratch would require many years, significant investments and difficult work to consolidate the land bank. The deal allows us to simultaneously obtain farmland, processing facilities and operating infrastructure, said Vadim Anikin, Director of the Consumer Sector and Agro-Industrial Complex practice at Strategy Partners.
In the BEFL rating, Prostory ranks 11th with a land bank of 449 thousand hectares. If the deal with VTB covers all the lands under the management of Labinsky, the total land bank of the buyer may grow to 667 thousand hectares, Ilya Bereznyuk estimated. In this case, Prostory can rise to the sixth place among the largest owners of agricultural land in Russia, ahead of EkoNiva, Bio-Ton and agroholding Steppe. However, the final position will depend on the actual composition of the acquired assets and changes in the competitors' land banks, Vadim Anikin clarified.
VTB is curtailing investments in agriculture amid preparations for the introduction of new Central Bank restrictions on banks' investments in non-core assets from April 2027. In 2023, the group has already withdrawn from the capital of Demeter Holding, selling its stake of about 45%. Andrey Kostin said at the time that the deal had brought the bank a "decent margin," but did not disclose the name of the buyer.
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