WASHINGTON, July 19 (RIA Novosti) – A group led by a Californian auction company made the winning bid for the assets of Ukrainian billionaire Oleg Bakhmatyuk’s failed US poultry venture this week, the North Carolina News and Observer reported.
San Francisco-based Rabin Worldwide bid $5.36 million for the properties and equipment in North Carolina, which Bakhmatyuk purchased from bankrupt US poultry firm Townsend in 2011.
Bakhmatyuk, the majority owner of Ukraine’s largest egg producer, spent over $35 million on a plan to import cheap grain from Ukraine and then export products to Russia, China, the Middle East and Ukraine. The plan ran aground within months due to rising feed and fuel prices and problems with Bakhmatyuk’s import and export plans, the News and Observer reported this week.
Bakhmatyuk was losing $7 million to $8 million in the United States before he abruptly shut down operations in October 2011, less than a year after entering the market according to the Kyiv Post.
