Prosecutors say major US investor in Russia’s agriculture is extremist

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By Gleb Bryanski and Maxim Rodionov

MOSCOW, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Russia’s prosecutor general said a U.S. fund, which owns major assets in agriculture in Russia, was extremist and filed a lawsuit to a Moscow court asking it to stop it operating, pending a seizure of its assets.

The statement said that prosecutors filed a lawsuit on December 9 against the company NCH Capital as well as against its founders George Rohr, a U.S. citizen, and Moris Tabacinic, an Austrian citizen. Rohr and Tabacinic founded NCH in 1993.

NCH did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The CEO of Russia’s second-largest bank VTB Andrei Kostin last week said that the bank was interested in buying NCH assets. He also said separately that the bank wanted to create a national agriculture champion.

Law firm NSP in a report published earlier this year said that accusations of extremism were often used to justify asset seizures by the state from both Russian and foreign owners.

NSP said the state has confiscated or placed under state management assets worth some $50 billion since the start of the war in Ukraine, including $2.35 billion worth of assets from owners described as extremist.

Many of the owners who had their Russian assets seized over extremism allegations had links to Ukraine, including Ukraine’s former President Petro Poroshenko. NCH Capital has large assets in Ukraine’s agricultural sector.

AgroTerra, one of Russia’s top-20 agricultural landholders, was placed under temporary state management by a decree from Russian President Vladimir Putin in April 2024.

NCH responded by saying that NCH Agribusiness Partners, a private equity fund owned by a group of U.S. institutional investors and managed by New York-based NCH Capital, had no plans to sell AgroTerra.

($1 = 77.3455 roubles)

(Writing by Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Barbara Lewis)