Marina Sysoyeva

 Najd Investments, a Dubai-based, privately-owned company, and Siberian Agrarian Holding, a Russian grain grower, are creating a joint venture to trade Russia’s grain.

Siberian Agrarian, which has fields from Siberia to the Black Sea, will own 51 percent of the joint venture and Najd Investments, whose founder and chairman is Prince Abulmohsin Bin Abdullah Al Saud, 49 percent, according to a press conference in Moscow today.

Under the agreement signed today, the joint venture will exclusively sell Siberian Agrarian’s grain and Najd Investments will only buy Russian-origin grain through the joint venture, said Sergey Solousov, deputy chairman of the new venture and head of corporate finance at Moscow-based investment company IFC Metropol.

Siberian Agrarian operates about 400,000 hectares (988,400 acres) of lands. Its grain production was estimated at 340,000 metric tons last year, up from 322,000 tons before the 2010 drought.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-13/najd-investments-siberian-agrarian-plan-russian-joint-venture.html