The photo is tiiiny, but the business is enormous. Pictured is the daughter of A. Tkachev, the former governor and now Russia’s agriculture minister. Congratulations are in order: she has recently joined the top five largest landowners in Russia.
At present, according to RBC, the ownership structure of Kubansky Bacon is “looped,” meaning the company effectively owns itself. This is done when the real owners want to stay hidden and arrange things so that the actual owners are the managers. They control the cash flows and profit distribution, but are not formal shareholders (we see something similar, for example, at Surgutneftegaz). Given the identity of the ultimate owner, the situation is obvious.
Here is what is known about the talented daughter from Slon’s profile of the Tkachev mafia:
She lives in Moscow, but this enterprising businesswoman owns land all across Mother Russia.
As for her husband, Roman Batalov, he is quite the businessman himself. You may recall that we wrote about him in our report on corruption at the Sochi Olympics.
All in all, excellent. Obviously, agriculture is bound to thrive when one of the country’s biggest landowners is the agriculture minister’s daughter. You cannot even say she “treats the land as if it were her own,” because it really is hers.
We will really start living well now; import substitution will take off.
And of course, the “fifth column” and the opposition must be fought. It is obvious why they are unhappy with this state of affairs: they want to hand Kubansky Bacon’s shares over to Obama. We will not allow it.