To strengthen the support provided to the management of the Company and to develop a new strategic vision in the current global environment, the Shareholders of Sodrugestvo have appointed the following Independent Directors to the Board...

KALININGRAD, MARCH 3RD 2009

To strengthen the support provided to the management of the Company and to develop a new strategic vision in the current global environment, the Shareholders of Sodrugestvo have appointed the following Independent Directors to the Board.

Yury N. Khitrov

Mr. Khitrov was born in 1969 in Moscow, Russia. In 1992, Yury graduated from the Faculty of the International Economic Relations of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO); he completed his PhD in Economics at the Moscow State University of Economic, Statistics and Informatics (MESI) in 2000. He received his Executive MBA degree from IMD Lausanne in 2003.

Yury has started his career with McKinsey in 1991 as a business analyst in London. He then joined Pepsi World Trade as Business Development Manager from 1992 until 1995. From 1995 until 1997 he was Chief of the Representative Office of Tradigrain in Moscow. In 1997, he joined Alfa-Bank as Deputy Chief of the Credit Directorate, and was named Chief of the Debt Program Directorate in 1999. Yury joined Credit Suisse First Boston (later Credit Suisse) in 2004, as Director of the Structured Finance Department and Member of the Executive Board of Credit Suisse Moscow. At Credit Suisse, Mr. Khitrov has been in charge of organizing, structuring and syndicating financing for the bank clients, as well as of structuring financial derivatives.

Yury has left Credit Suisse in December 2008. He speaks fluent Russian and English, as well as French and Spanish.

Philippe de Laperouse

Philippe de Laperouse was born in 1953 in Paris,France. Philippe received his BA degree from Trinity College (Hartford, Connecticut) in 1975 and his MBA degree from Darden School of Business/The University of Virginia in 1979 Philippe started his career in the financial services industry, first as a Summer Associate at Salomon Brothers (1978), then as an Associate at Warburg Paribas Becker, Inc.(1979-82) in New York City and Newbury, Rosen & Company(1982-83) in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1984, Philippe began his 25-year career in international agribusiness when he joined Ralston Purina in its global livestock/poultry feed and pet food business where he held different positions such as Plant Manager in Barcelona, Spain, Director of Pet Food Marketing, Director of Health Products Division and Director of the New Business Division in Paris France, and eventually Managing Director at the company’s headquarters in St Louis, Missouri. In 1994, Philippe was named Vice-President of the Fund for Large Enterprises(FLER) in Russia, a direct equity investment fund chartered and financed by USAID and OPIC to finance private ventures in Russia. He 1996, he joined Bunge North America, first in international marketing and then as a Director of Business Development, reporting to the President and CEO.

Philippe left Bunge in 2003 to establish Vanikoro Advisory LLC, a consultancy advising companies on global expansion strategies. Since 2006, he has been Managing Director of the Global Food, Agribusiness and Biofuels practice at HighQuest Partners, a strategic advisory and management consulting firm serving Fortune 500, Global 1000 and emerging technology companies, investors and organizations in the food, agribusiness, biofuels (ethanol, biodiesel and biomass) and clean technology sectors. Philippe has served as a member of several industries, civic and non-profit Boards, including the Soyfood Association of North America and the Advisory Board of the Boeing Institute of International Business at St. Louis University. He speaks fluent English, French and Spanish, as well as some Russian.

Jean-Paul Pinard

Jean-Paul Pinard recently retired from the World Bank Group (WBG) where he held several management positions for a number of years. He was from 2001 to 2007 Director of the Agribusiness Department of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector arm of the WBG, where he was responsible for managing IFC’s global investment portfolio in agriculture, agribusiness and food production. Since leaving the WBG, Jean-Paul has continued to act as a representative of IFC in several entities while also pursuing other personal interests. Jean-Paul, a French national, is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique (Paris, France) and holds a Doctorate in Economics from the University of California (San Diego, USA). Mr. Pinard speaks fluent French and English.

Poul Schroeder

Poul Schroeder was born in 1944 in Aarhus, Denmark, and has been working in the international agribusiness since 1966. Poul completed his basic commercial education in Denmark and joined Continental Grain Company as a trainee in France in 1966. After four years in European grain trading he was transferred to Germany as Trading Manager for Conti’s commodity business in Northern Europe. In 1976 he became General Manager. During 1979 Poul participated in the Columbia University, New York Senior Management Program. He moved to Conti’s H.Q. in New York as Vice President Worldwide Protein and Derivative Trade in 1981. After two years in New York the next assignment with Conti was Trading Manager Europe, in Geneva. Poul became General Manager Europe and Chairman of Finagrain (Conti Geneva) in 1990 and in 1992 his responsibilities were enlarged to include Africa and The Far East. After Continental Grains commodity business was sold to Cargill in 1999 Poul left Conti Group and was hired by Bunge to help build an international commodity business. He worked as Director of European Agribusiness and Chairman of Bunge S.A. Geneva until his retirement at the end of 2006. Although Poul is pleased to have retired from day to day business, he continues to enjoy working part time as an Independent Consultant.

The other Directors are Alexander V. Lutsenko, Chairman of the Board, Nataliya I. Lutsenko and Stephane Frappat, Chief Executive Officer.

Sodrugestvo (www.sodrugestvo.com) has been founded in 1994 and is one of the fastest growing actors in the global oilseed industry. With a daily crushing capacity of 3,300 tons, it is the largest independent soybean processor in Europe, and one of the largest players on the Russian oilseeds market. Sodrugestvo has its head office and main production facility in the Kaliningrad Oblast. The Company has more than 1,000 collaborators in 15 countries. Sodrugestvo consolidated sales in the year ending June 30th 2008 have reached $718.4 mil. and EBITDA $60.5 mil.

Contact: Vitaly L. Verigo
Tel: +7 4012 305 526