Sergei Kislov. The success story of Sergei Kislov: business “smoothly” of the creator of the brand “Zolotaya Semechka. President of the Yug Rusi company

Sergey Kislov comes from a family of teachers who graduated from the Physics Department of the Russian State University. He started a business from scratch by processing grain into flour and exporting sunflower seeds abroad. In 1992 he registered the Yug Rusi company, and in 1998 launched the first oil extraction enterprise in the Russian Federation. In 2003, the corporation owned 45% of the Russian vegetable oil market. In 2005, the businessman launched an oil refinery, and by 2010 he had organized 20 profitable farms in the countryside. He is the author of the Zolotaya Semechka brand, which by 2017 ranked 153rd in the Forbes ranking of the richest entrepreneurs in Russia.

FULL NAME: Kislov Sergey Vasilievich
Date of Birth: December 7, 1960
Education: Faculty of Physics, Rostov State University
Business start date / age: 1992, 32 years old
Startup activity: subsidiary agriculture
Current activity: food production
Current state (2017, Forbes): USD 650 million

Is it possible to go from a simple worker to the chairman of the Agro-Industrial Union of Russia? How to start with buying 2 tons of grain and get into the Forbes rating in a couple of decades? Is it realistic to create a huge business empire without money and connections?

Sergey Vasilievich Kislov is a Russian entrepreneur who created a business on oil and turned it into a powerful diversified corporation. He successfully pursued his entrepreneurial talent in industries that others thought would be failures. In 2017, his fortune was estimated by Forbes at $ 650 million.

Figure 1. Dynamics of S. Kislov's condition in 2011-2017, mln USD
Source: Forbes

The businessman's success story is unique: a native of a family of Rostov teachers, a physicist by first education Sergei Kislov consistently, patiently and purposefully created "products for people." Through hard work, he hardened his entrepreneurial spirit and developed a talent for leadership.

"A farm manager is a person who can manage everything - an oil refinery, a port, and a transport enterprise ... He personifies the central authority."

In 1992, together with his secretary, he organized a small company "Yug Rusi" for processing grain into flour. By 2016, it had turned into a large corporation, whose turnover exceeded $ 60 billion per year, and the number of employees amounted to 14 thousand people.

In 2016 alone, he increased his fortune by $ 50 million.His huge business empire includes a variety of assets: agricultural farms, an elevator, a cannery, a press-forging plant, a production of corrugated cardboard for boxes and corks, a printing house for printing labels, a port, a bakery, an oil refinery, a boutique wine restaurant and even its own racetrack.

Figure 2. On awarding the Order of Merit to the Rostov Region, 2014.
Source: AiF

The core of his business is the production of vegetable oil of the brands "Zolotaya Semechka", "Avedov", "Zlato", "Milora".

In 2014, Sergey Kislov was awarded the Order of Merit for the Rostov Region, which was a confirmation of his work aimed at developing production, creating jobs and supporting rural areas in this region of Russia.

Was the path to success for the oilseed millionaire easy? Brief biography of the agro-industrial tycoon Sergei Kislov and the stages of creating his business empire:

Education, career and the first steps of Sergei Kislov in business

The story of the Russian billionaire, "oil magnate" Sergei Kislov began in an ordinary way: he was born on December 7, 1960 in Rostov-on-Don into a family of Soviet teachers. Behind the calm demeanor was a strong masculine character, which was destined to play a role in the development of an outstanding businessman.

After graduating from school No. 5, he chooses the profession of physics and enters Rostov State University. Even in his student years, Sergei begins to earn extra money at the Rostov improvement plant as a worker, later he gets a job as a foreman. The diligent specialist was noticed:

1985 - he was appointed deputy director of the Soyuzenergoavtomatika pilot plant;
1988 - he gets a job as head of the subsidiary farm of the Rostov port.

Figure 3. At the post of head of the subsidiary farm of the Rostov port, 1989.
Source: Publishing House "Krestyanin"

Leading positions show the inadequacy of higher education in the field of physics: in 1986 he entered the Higher economic courses at the University of Natural Sciences (Rostov-on-Don).

“Managing a horse is very similar to managing a team. He loosened the reins - the horse is indulging, he made a sharp movement - the horse did not understand, he carried it. In the same way, no sharp movements can be made in a team: people work there with their own moods, life principles, and foundations. The horse must not be pinched, and at the same time it must not be left without constant attention. "

In 1992, he embarks on the path of creating his own business. In these difficult times, the chance to organize a serious business for a person without solid start-up capital and connections was close to zero. Kislov understood this, but did not back down and registered the Yug Rusi company for the production of flour.

Having bought 2 tons of grain and paid for its grinding, Sergei and his secretary sold the finished product for $ 400. The proceeds were used to buy and process 3 tons of grain ... This was the beginning of a progression that steadily led to significant financial results.

Figure 4. At the elevator.
Source: DonNews

“Then, in 1992, a company was organized that bought grain from peasants, processed it into flour at foreign mills and supplied it to many regions of Russia and the republics of the former USSR. This was the beginning of the activities of the Yug Rusi group of companies.

In parallel to the milling business, opportunities have opened up in another agricultural sector - sunflower processing. Initially, seeds were bought from peasants and exported through two of their own port terminals - in Rostov and the Caucasus.

In 1997, the Yug Rusi company came out on top in the export of sunflower seeds. However, the price of the product fluctuated significantly (up to 50-70%), there were export quotas, and it was possible to arrange shipment in only three Russian ports. The time has come for decisive action ...

"South of Russia" - millions in oil

In 1998, Sergei Kislov, at the expense of investors' funds and bank loans, collects a record amount - $ 45 million for the purchase of a line for the production of sunflower oil from the Belgian company De Smet Engineers & Contractors. It was a risky step - after the collapse of the USSR, there was not a single plant for processing sunflower seeds in the country.

The plant was launched in 1999. It was Sergei Kislov who came up with the idea for the name of the brand “Golden Seed”.

Figure 5. Best Product of 2017.
Source: Agro-TV

“A brand is an emotion. The buyer needs specific information: a large sunflower and an unambiguous phrase - a golden seed ”.

In just 3 years, Yug Rusi captured up to 45% of the Russian bottled vegetable oil market. What is the reason for such a rapid pace of development?

Its cost turned out to be 2 times less than imported analogues.
The peroxide number, the maximum limiting value of which is 10, in the oil of "Yuga Rus" was brought to 1.

“You always need to keep an eye on quality. Quality at any cost. The product should be for people. We make oil for the people - high quality and affordable ”.

Raw materials were purchased not only from small peasant farms, but also from large agricultural enterprises, such as Yuri Roshkovan's Agro Mir.

Figure 6. President of the "South of Russia" company.
Source: Kommersant

In 2005, Sergei Kislov undertook to expand his business: next to the old plant, he began to build a new plant for the production of sunflower oil. The Yug Rusi plant complex was recognized as one of the largest in Europe.

In 2006, the entrepreneur decides to acquire 5 Rusagro creameries in the Voronezh region and the Krasnodar Territory. Such oil brands as Avedov, Zlato, Milora were transferred to the assets of Yug Rossii.

Today the agricultural union "Yug Rusi" of Kislov is the undisputed leader of the vegetable oil market in Russia, processing up to 2.5 million sunflower seeds per year.

RISKS & CLAIMS-2017. Assessment of insurance risks and claims settlement

The organizer of the conference is the National Association of Insurance Adjusters (NASA). Thematic section: “Claims settlement: modern challenges and future solutions”. Partner Sergey Kislov, speaker of the section. Moscow, Metropol, 20/09/2017.

RISKS & CLAIMS-2017. Assessment of insurance risks and claims settlement

The well-known Don agricultural holding " South of Russia»Changes its business registration.

Recently, the Federal Antimonopoly Service gave the go-ahead to two Cypriot companies, SolPro Investments Ltd and Indicativo Capital Ltd, to purchase the enterprises at that time of the Yug Rusi Rostov holding. For sale 23 enterprises: oil extraction plants, elevators, port, bakeries. The shares in the block of shares were distributed as follows: 62% of shares in the parent company Yug Rusi will be received by SolPro Investments Ltd, the remaining 38% will be transferred to Indicativo Capital Ltd.

Of course, this does not mean that from now on, Yug Rusi will turn from a Russian company into a foreign company. According to Vedomosti, Cypriot buying companies represent the interests of another large Russian agricultural holding, the Saratov Solnechny Products. They say that the chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin may have a certain relation to this holding. Indeed, he was a co-owner of this company 10 years ago. Now, as Delovoy Kvartal writes with reference to kartoteka.ru, a certain Vyacheslav Viktorovich Volodin owns 7.5% of shares in LLC J.K". And that, in turn, controls 89.05% of the Solnechnye Products Trading House.

Until recently, the Volga residents shared the sunflower processing market with Yug Rusi. The share of the Rostov company, according to the Fat-and-Oil Union, last year amounted to 19.7%, and that of Solnechnye Products - 17.1%. In other words, today we are talking about the merger of the two largest companies, after which a giant will emerge, with which there will be simply no one to compete in the domestic market. However, it will no longer be the Don giant ...

More precisely, not quite Don. Because it is premature to say that by selling “ South of Russia”, Its owner Sergei Kislov is drastically changing the profile of his business. Yes, apparently, the Novoshakhtinsky Oil Refinery (NZNP) is now becoming the leading enterprise in his empire. But at the same time, another Cypriot company, this time representing the interests of Yug Rusi, bought 32.01% of the shares of SolPro Investments Ltd. And that, as you know, acquired a share of "Yuga Rus" for "Solar Products". The FAS recently approved this deal. Thus, a certain share in the agro-giant being created today remains with Kislov.

Such is the "multi-move" it turns out ... Dictated, first of all, by financial problems, which, according to experts, have arisen in "Yug Rus". According to the magazine "Expert-Yug", almost all analysts of the agricultural products market agree that they were the root cause of such a complex transaction.

Plus, on the horizon, S. Kislov has a very promising project to increase the production capacity of deep oil refining. The NZNP signed a corresponding agreement with the authorities of the Rostov region back in 2015 at the Sochi investment forum. The enterprise intends to produce petroleum products of the EURO-6 standard. The project cost reaches 63 billion rubles.

Negotiations with Solnechny Products have been suspended The largest agricultural holding in the Rostov region, Yug Rusi, and their Saratov colleagues from Solnechny Products have decided to postpone the merger.
DonNews.Ru
24.07.2017
Don-TR
17.07.2017 The Don company "Yug Rusi", which includes 20 agricultural enterprises in the Rostov, Volgograd regions and Krasnodar Territory, will change its owner.
GTRK Don-TR
17.07.2017

"Companies"

Yug Rusi, Rosagroleasing

"Ratings"

"News"

Solar Products and Yug Rusi have suspended the merger of holdings

The companies "Solnechnye Products" and "Yug Rusi" have stopped negotiations on the creation of a merged company. This is stated in a joint statement of the holdings, which was at the disposal of RBC.

Solnechnye Products is part of Vladislav Burov's Buket Group of Companies, while Yug Rusi belongs to businessman Sergei Kislov. According to the newspaper "Vedomosti", both companies are leaders in the oil and fat market: "Yug Rusi" in 2016 produced 27% of all sunflower oil in Russia, "Solnechnye Products" - 2.3%.

SPIEF 2017 participants continue to arrive at Pulkovo

SPIEF: Omskneftekhimproekt wants to join Sakhalin Energy with Koreans

Also, during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, ONHP intends to conclude a major agreement with the Yug Energo group of billionaire Sergei Kislov.
Today, June 2, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, General Director of PJSC ONHP Igor Zuga signs two agreements with new partners.

SOUTH OF RUSSIA GOT TO KHERSON

Description of the transaction: In June, AMCU agreed on a deal on the purchase of Yug Agroleasing LLC (RF) of the assets of the WJ Group agro group - Valuisky and Chernyansky vegetable oil factories in the Belgorod region (the total capacity of this production is 15 million liters of oil per month), as well as the brand Milor and other assets in strange CIS countries, including Ukraine. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. The turnover of the entire WJ Group in 2007 (no later data) was about $ 700 million. The main owner of the WJ Group is entrepreneur Yuri Drukker. Yug Agroleasing is part of Yug Rusi, owned by Sergei Kislov. In Ukraine, WJ Group owns a grain trading business, and also owns OJSC Kherson Plant of Bread Products (in 2010, its turnover is UAH 150 million).
link: http://pr-z.com.ua/ krupneyshie-sdelki-nedeli- yaytsa

"Freebie will end soon"

The President inquired about the state of affairs in agriculture. The governors suggested that he develop the agricultural industry with the help of “resource-saving technologies”, reduce taxes and support projects for “technical re-equipment”. Farmers, however, are more concerned about high interest rates on loans and the high cost of imported agricultural machinery.

The farmers, however, prepared other recipes for the president. At a meeting before the meeting of the State Council, the head of the rural production cooperative Orbita Vadim Schneider complained to Putin that “before the farmer was given a loan at 5-6% per annum, but now the rates have increased to 16%,” and “30% import duties on agricultural machinery are not allow us to buy high-quality imported cars ”. The head of the cooperative "Kazminsky" Alexander Shumsky proposed to provide "gratuitous grants" to regions with "difficult natural and climatic conditions." And the president of the Yug Rusi agricultural holding, Sergei Kislov, complained that Brazil “closed the import of Russian wheat,” and asked for support from the Foreign Ministry.
link: http://kompromat.flb.ru/ material1.phtml? id = 6867

Sergey Kislov became the richest businessman on the Don

In mid-February, Finance magazine published a list of the 500 richest people in Russia, whose fortune exceeds 3.3 billion rubles. As always, there were not many businessmen from the Rostov region, this time only five. The highest position of all Don entrepreneurs in this rating is occupied by the owner of the Yug Rusi agricultural holding, SERGEY KISLOV, who is ranked 213 with a fortune of 11.5 billion rubles. He is followed in 282nd place by State Duma deputy, founder of the Agrokom group IVAN SAVVIDI, whose capital was estimated by the Finance magazine at 8.2 billion rubles. The founder and main owner of Gloria Jeans, VLADIMIR MELNIKOV, moved up to 294 positions from 7.6 billion rubles. The owner of the Aston holding VADIM VIKULOV ranked 306th with a fortune of 7 billion rubles. The last (and the youngest) Don businessmen to be included in this list was the main shareholder of the Valars agro-trading group KIRILL PODOLSKY from Taganrozh. His fortune was estimated by Finance analysts at 6.4 billion rubles. It should be noted that only two residents of Rostov were present in the rating for 2008 - Ivan Savvidi and Vadim Vikulov. According to the data of "Finance", their fortune has grown in 2009 almost threefold.

On February 3, the Novoshakhtinsky plant, owned by the Yug Rusi diversified company, suspended its production activities. Rostekhnadzor has canceled the license issued earlier to OAO NZNP for the operation of explosive production facilities. The plant's management challenged this decision in the Moscow arbitration. Consideration of the case on the merits is scheduled for March 16. According to the estimates of market participants, the downtime of an enterprise can entail losses of 1 billion rubles per month.

Last week, the first results of the audit of dealer companies that are part of the sales holding of OJSC AvtoVAZ - OJSC Lada-service became known. In 2009, the automaker discovered a shortage of 6385 cars for a total amount of more than 1.4 billion rubles. and turned to law enforcement agencies. Among the dealers caught in illegal trade were OJSC "Rostov-Lada" and "Kuban-Lada".
The check, carried out by the Department of Economic Crimes of the Rostov Regional Department of Internal Affairs, established that from September 2007 to May 2008, cars were sold at OJSC “Rostov-Lada” with the help of a cash register and double-entry bookkeeping that was not registered with the tax authorities. The press service of the GUVD reports that in September 2009 alone, more than 50 facts of illegal sales were registered.
link: http://dkvartal.ru/rostov/ magazines / dk-rostov / 2010 / n04 / sergejj_kislov_stal_samym_ bogatym_biznesmenom_na_donu

200 richest businessmen in Russia
link: http://www.compromat.ru/page_ 30682.htm

Discord seed

The deal between Senators Vadim Moshkovich and Sergei Kislov, as a result of which the Yug Rusi holding should receive Rusagro's oil and fat enterprises, may be delayed. As it became known to “Vedomosti”, the additional issue of shares of the oil and fat plant (MZhK) “Krasnodarskiy” is trying to challenge the Cyprus offshore Antanta Investments Ltd. This company is located at the same address as the Antanta Capital investment company, owned by the son of Arkady Gaydamak, Alexander.

The largest co-owner of the Rusagro group is Senator Vadim Moshkovich. Until recently, her “daughter” Rusagro-Maslo controlled six oil and fat enterprises. The largest co-owner of the Yug Rusi holding, according to market participants, is Senator Sergei Kislov. The holding is the largest producer of bottled oil. In recent months, five enterprises of Rusagro-Maslo, including the Krasnodarsky MZhK, have come under the control of Yuga Rusi.
link: http://www.compromat.ru/page_ 19271.htm

President of the Yug Rusi company:

Over 18 years of its history, the Yug Rusi company created by Sergei Kislov has gone from a company with a staff of two to one of the largest agro-industrial holdings in the country and in Europe, which is a vertically integrated structure and includes dozens of areas. And oil "Golden Seed" has become an indispensable attribute on the table not only for Russians, but also for residents of many other countries. On December 7, Sergei Kislov turned 50 years old. On the eve of his birthday, Sergei Vasilyevich met with a 161.ru correspondent. It was both about the present day and about the history of "Yuga Rus".

- Sergei Vasilievich, was it easy to take the first steps to create the "South of Russia"? How it all began?

- It was 1992. After the collapse of the USSR, economic ties between enterprises from its former republics were also disrupted. Including between the bakeries of Transcaucasia and large mills in Russia, traditionally supplying them with flour. Then the company was created, which laid the foundation for "Yuga Rus". She bought grain from the agrarians of the South of Russia, processed it on tolling terms into flour and sent it to the Transcaucasus. The first lots were very small, as our turnover at the beginning was only a thousand dollars! There was life, and there were life principles that gave the foundation for further development. At first we were called "South of Russia", then we were renamed into "South of Russia". Then we became the largest flour supplier in Ayzerbajan, we were trusted with international contracts. And we saw: where there is grain, there is also a seed. At that time, the seed was not grown in such large quantities. There was no large sales of it, and we decided to give it a go.

In 1994 we built our own small pier, although no one believed that this was possible in the conditions of the time. And this berth became a catalyst for business, in two years we came out on top in the export of oilseeds. But in the oilseed trade, the terms were dictated by the buyer. And the buyer did not always behave correctly. There were cases when our cargo arrived, for example, in Turkey under a signed contract. And the buyer did not unload it and began to bargain. And these cases happened all the time. Then it became clear that it was necessary to build your own oil processing plant. It was built in less than a year. This radically changed the situation on the oil market. Prior to that, Russia imported one million tons of oil and exported most of the seeds. We began to provide the country with high quality oil ourselves. With the launch of the Yug Rusi plant, Russian oilseeds began to be processed domestically. A stable domestic demand was created for the villagers. As a result, over the past 10 years, three times more oilseeds have been grown in Russia.
link:

Founder and President of one of the largest Russian agricultural holdings - the Rostov group " South of Russia"- a closed and non-public person. Even unfriendly, say those who are familiar with him, assuming that it was precisely because of his non-publicity that Kislov was not approved as a senator five years ago. At the same time, his business qualities are highly appreciated, recognizing that the founder of Yug Rus built his empire himself - without connections in banks and the patronage of oligarchs. However, Kislov's ability to build relationships with the authorities cannot be denied either, Agroinvestor's interlocutors point out. In Russian business, especially such as agrarian business, this is one of the main components of success.

Kislov believes that managing a team is easier if you ... have horse riding skills. “Managing a horse is very similar to managing a team. I loosened the reins - the horse is indulging, made a sharp movement - the horse did not understand, it carried, - he said in an interview. - In the same way, no sharp movements can be made in a team: people work there with their own moods, life principles, foundations. The horse must not be pinched, and at the same time it must not be left without constant attention. "

His business empire includes quite a variety of assets: a hippodrome, a small fleet, a bakery division, an oil refinery, a Nikolas wine boutique restaurant, a printing house (labels), the production of PET flasks for blowing bottles, paper for corrugated boxes, bottle caps, as well as the Azov a plant for forging and pressing machines (manufactures products for creameries), elevators, agricultural enterprises, a cannery, etc. The basis of the business is the production of vegetable oil under the brand name "Zolotaya Semechka". Equestrian assets, by the way, are somewhat out of this series, including the Rostov hippodrome and the stud farm named after V.I. Budyonny. Kislov assures that this is an image project. He himself has been keen on horseback riding since the late 1990s and claims that horses obey him even without a whip.

Man of the people

Kislov was born on December 7, 1960 in Rostov-on-Don into a family of teachers. After graduating from secondary school No. 5, he entered the physics department of Rostov State University. Since 1983 he has been working as a worker, foreman in the regional improvement plant in Rostov-on-Don. But two years later, Kislov became deputy director of the Rostov experimental plant "Soyuzenergoavtomatika". At the same time, he continues his education and in 1986 graduated from the Higher Economic Courses at the University of Natural Sciences of Rostov-on-Don with a degree in economics. By 1988, Kislov was no longer a deputy, but a head - the head of the subsidiary agriculture of the Rostov port.

In 1992, he starts working in the companies that later became the basis of the group. First, he becomes deputy chairman of the Universal cooperative (Rostov-on-Don), then - the manager of the experimental agriculture "Decorative Cultures", the director of the "Salut" company and, finally, in 1995, he heads the "South of Russia" - the parent company of the " South of Russia". “I started doing business in the mid-1980s, when the cooperative movement began,” said Kislov. Agroinvestor". "By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the greatest demand was in the food sector." After the collapse of the USSR, it turned out like this: all flour mills are in Russia, and Transcaucasia was left without flour. But the millers also had a hard time, recalls Kislov: they needed live money to pay off the workers and pay taxes. “Then, in 1992, a company was organized that bought grain from peasants, processed it into flour at foreign tolling mills and supplied it to many regions of Russia and the republics of the former USSR (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Central Asian, etc.) ... This was the beginning of the activities of the group of companies " South of Russia". - the businessman recalls. Then the company consisted of two people: Kislov himself and the secretary.

Spun up on flour

The business was promoted in the following way, Kislov told Vedomosti: they bought 2 tons of grain and paid for its processing at a flour mill. It was inexpensive, about $ 400. Then they sold this flour and bought another 3 tons of grain, and so on until a turnover of several thousand tons. Grain was purchased in the Rostov and Voronezh regions, in the Krasnodar Territory and even in the Moscow Region. “In the 1990s, the entire business developed in a critical situation that forced people with certain talents to come forward. Kislov is one of them, - says Valery Sergachev, director of raw materials of the company “ Efko". - He knows how to build a management team and delegate authority, clearly sees the ultimate goal and understands what he wants. Not everyone can build a company almost from scratch, without having rich relatives or connections in banks and oligarchic structures. "

After some time, Kislov took up another promising business - the export of sunflower seeds. But it turned out to be difficult. There were quotas on the market, special exporters, and most importantly, Russian exporters dealt with only a dozen buyers of raw materials, who often dictated conditions. The market was extremely sensitive to the volume of supplies, price fluctuations for seeds reached 50-70% of the average price. As soon as Russian exporters increase the export of seeds, the price immediately sagged. “Sometimes, even at the time of the current contract, loaded ships came to Turkey, but they were not unloaded, demanding a unilateral price reduction. Such was the wild market, ”Kislov recalled.

There are, however, the same complaints about him. The owner of a large Russian grain trading company recalls: “We tried to cooperate with Yug Rusi, but soon realized that [...] decisions were made inconsistently. There were cases when we signed contracts for the supply of sunflower, and Kislov canceled them at the last moment without giving any reasons. " Yuri Roshkovan, founder of the Rostov-Mir agricultural company, on the contrary, stands up for Kislov: “He is a competent entrepreneur. We have been cooperating with him for about 10 years, we supply sunflower, and, it should be noted, at a fairly high price - now 19 thousand rubles / ton. In terms of grain, we are less satisfied with the situation, but we supply Yuga Rusi with wheat - here the prices are lower. But this is the market in which there is no clear distinction between the classes: for example, we sell fodder at 4 rubles / kg, while wheat of the 4th class is only 20 kopecks / kg more expensive. "

First on butter

By 1997 " South of Russia»Was able to come to one of the first places (according to other sources - the first) in Russia for the export of sunflower, having built in 1994 its own grain transshipment terminal in the water area of the Rostov port. Then a terminal appeared in the port of Kavkaz, on roadstead loading of which ships with a displacement of up to 40 thousand tons are loaded.

To reduce his dependence on volatile export prices, Kislov decided to start producing oil. And unlike seeds, oil can be bought not by a dozen, but by hundreds of companies. Prices for this product fluctuated by 25%, Kislov told Vedomosti. “By the end of the 1990s, a situation developed in Russia in which the country did not have its own modern facilities for the production of high-quality vegetable oil,” he answered the questions of Agroinvestor. "Sunflower seeds were exported from Russia, and bottled oil was imported back."

The Yuga Rusi creamery was built in the crisis year of 1998 and commissioned in 1999. From the next year, refining and packing lines started operating, and Zolotaya Semechka butter entered the market. Kislov recalls that initially there was an idea to create an umbrella brand and sell flour, cereals and other goods under it. But after tests in focus groups, I had to abandon the idea. As, however, and from the idea to follow the rules of the Russian language, because then the oil would be called "Golden Seed". The first few years, letters came to the company, where people pointed out a mistake, Kislov recalls, then people got used to it. And for good reason: according to IKAR estimates, “ South of Russia»Occupies 45% of the Russian bottled oil market. "Golden Seed" was [...] two times cheaper than imported oil ", - Kislov is proud and adds that the Russian oil produced on Western equipment could boast of excellent quality. “In refined oil, the peroxide value is the main quality indicator,” he explains. - The higher it is, the worse the oil. The maximum level is 10 units. Many manufacturers then said that 10 was an unattainable figure for Russia. A " South of Russia"Began to produce oil with a peroxide number much less than 1". “I was at his enterprise at the beginning of 2000, everything was in order, many new management decisions were introduced at that time,” recalls Viktor Semyonov, State Duma deputy and chairman of the Assagros Association of Industrial Unions.

In 2005 in Rostov-on-Don " South of Russia»Next to the first one, he built a second oil extraction plant, the capacity of which is up to 3 thousand tons of seeds per day. The total capacity of the company's oil production complex thus increased to 4 thousand tons / day, or about 1.5 million tons / year of oilseeds, making the complex one of the largest in Europe.

In 2006 " South of Russia"Made a deal, thanks to which he became the undisputed leader in the Russian market of vegetable oil: acquired from" Rusagro»Five oil extraction plants in the Krasnodar Territory and the Voronezh Region. The experts estimated the assets at $ 80-100 million. Together with the factories, the popular brands Zlato and Avedov were acquired. Also " South of Russia"Gained control over the raw material zones of oil extraction plants" Rusagro”, And its total seed processing capacity increased to 2.3 million tons / year.

Since 2000, Kislov is also an agricultural producer. The company was one of the first in the country to engage in large-scale agricultural production, he likes to emphasize. There were almost no machinery in the village, no fertilizers were applied, and the wheat yield in many farms in the chernozemic Rostov region did not exceed 11 centners / ha. Now the group includes 20 farms in the Rostov region, Krasnodar region, Volgograd region - more than 200 thousand hectares of land under control. Kislov is proud that if earlier the average age of workers was under 60 years old, now young people have returned to his farms, the average age is 35-36 years old. Agroprom is a complex industry, but the company clearly understood from the very beginning what is needed to be successful in this business. “These are two things - motivation [of personnel] and modernization,” Kislov summarizes.

Failed Senator“He is a man, to put it mildly, unfriendly, and at the same time rather self-confident. I don’t really understand his business, ”the CEO of a large South Russian grain company characterizes Kislova. - He, for example, bought low-power electrical networks. For what it is not clear. In general, his business was strongly supported by the previous regional leadership [headed by Governor Vladimir Chub], which actually hurt him: the entrepreneur often went to projects far from agriculture. " Yuri Roshkovan, on the other hand, sees logic in the actions of Yug Rusi: “When he started oil refining [the company built an oil refinery and an oil terminal in the region, owned Energosbyt Rostovenergo and Donenergosbyt - AI], it was a very serious move. If not him, then someone else would have done it. There is a concept for the development of rural areas until 2020: the emphasis will be on creating not farms, but rural infrastructure. In this sense, Kislov's non-core project has prospects. " “Business cannot be cut off from the environment in which it lives, and getting help from the administration is quite normal,” adds Sergachev from “ Efko". - Chub was repeatedly checked, wrote complaints, but Kislov was not involved in any of the cases. In any case, this has not been proven. "

Before the ban on the export of grain from Russia was introduced " South of Russia”Managed to take impressive positions. “He has always been one of the ten largest exporters. In the 2009/10 grain year " South of Russia"Ranked ninth," says Dmitry Rylko, general director of IKAR. “We believe that grain export is temporary,” Kislov admitted earlier. Therefore, the holding has mastered the production of bread, back in 2004, having launched its own bakery with a capacity of 40 tons / day. and having bought Rostov bakery № 1. According to its own data, the company provides more than 70% of Rostov-on-Don's needs in bread.

In March 2006, Kislov almost took a step into public politics. The Legislative Assembly of the Rostov Region elected him a senator. It remained to pass the approval in the Senate, but his credentials were never confirmed. Political analysts agreed that the speaker Sergei Mironov, who defended his protégé Valentina Petrenko, spoke out against Kislov. As a result, the then president of the Olympic Committee, Leonid Tyagachev, became the regional representative. Kislov, on the other hand, is actively involved in social activities. For some time he was the chairman of Rosagropromsoyuz. He is credited with the creation in 2009 of the Union of Vegetable Oil Producers, which is headed by a businessman. He is also the chairman of the All-Russian agro-industrial association of employers and the honorary consul of France in the Southern Federal District.

And the next major business project of Sergei Kislov may be the IPO of Yuga Rusi this year. He met with experts from the "Big Four" audit company, RBC reported in November 2010. An audit of the group's financial statements for 2008-2010 was discussed.

Victor Semyonov
State Duma Deputy, Head of the Assagros Association
Kislov belongs to the category of rather closed businessmen. I would note in it such features as restraint, consistency, peasant intelligence. This person has another important quality - he knows how to build relationships with the authorities without noise. Unfortunately, today this is also a factor for Russian business. His attempt to enter politics in 2005-2006, in my opinion, was unsuccessful precisely because of his non-publicity. Today he realized, as it seems to me, that it is difficult to defend his business without civil institutions. [Perhaps that is why] Sergey created the Union of Vegetable Oil Producers, which is a member of our association.

According to circumstances
Kislov knows how to change according to circumstances. At the peak of the popularity of biofuel projects, Yug Rusi announced plans to create a production facility for 100 thousand tons in the Rostov region or Germany. “There will be a good sales market for Russian crude butter,” he explained to Vedomosti in 2005. And in 2009, answering Agroinvestor's questions, he spoke about something else: “[The] Yug Rusi Group has never been a supporter of burning food (for example, vegetable oil in the form of biodiesel and wheat in the form of bioethanol). The future of the biofuel industry is in the processing of junk organic residues. ”