The Most Successful Businessman In Belarus Becomes Dollar Billionaire

What is known about him?

The value of Russian and Belarusian assets owned by Aliaksandr and Natallia Lutsenka exceeds $2 billion, Forbes writes.

The couple owns the Sodruzhestvo holding. It is one of the largest oilseed processors in Europe with revenues of $3.6 billion. In 2023, the business was restructured. According to Forbes, Alexander and Natalya Lutsenko actually divided the business into three parts. They retained control of Russian and Belarusian enterprises and sold a company that owned international assets to top managers.

“Considering that the Lutsenka spouses owned the Commonwealth group in equal shares, the fortune of each of them is at least $1 billion,” Forbes writes.

Previously, the publication “Belarusians and the Market” compiled the top 100 successful businessmen of Belarus based on the results of 2023. The first line of the rating was taken by Aliaksandr Lutsenka.

What is known about businessman Lutsenka

“Commonwealth” was founded by Aliaksandr and Natallia Lutsenka, immigrants from Belarus with Russian citizenship. Aliaksandr, who settled in Russia several years ago, was among the top 200 richest businessmen in Russia in 2021. And in 2023, he headed the top 100 successful businessmen of Belarus, which was compiled by the website “Belarusians and the Market”.

The Lutsenka spouses created their first company in 1994 in Minsk. Then they traded fishmeal and other feed additives. Ten years later, the couple expanded their business to the Kaliningrad region, building two factories in the free economic zone for the production of vegetable oil, including soybean oil, Zerkalo writes.

Since the early 2000s, Aliaksandr Lutsenka has been buying up assets in Europe and Latin America, scaling his business to the international level.

At the end of the 2010s, he returned to the Belarusian market. In 2018, the Lutsenka family commissioned the largest oil extraction plant in Belarus in Smorgon. As of 2019, $220 million was invested in it.

At the end of 2023, information appeared that Sodruzhestvo was considering the possibility of transferring part of the power from the Kaliningrad region to Belarus.

Aliaksandr Lutsenka’s business, either in Russia or in Belarus, was practically not affected by international sanctions. He launched a plant in the Kursk region and continues to implement a number of other projects in Russia, including the construction of a grain terminal in Ust-Luga. The Lutsenka family is also investing in a terminal for the annual transshipment of 10 million tons of grain in Ust-Luga near St. Petersburg, which they plan to build in 2023-2027.

Since 2022, Aliaksandr Lutsenka has been included in the Ukrainian sanctions list. “The entity carries out commercial activities in sectors of the economy, which provides a significant source of income for the Russian government, which initiated hostilities and genocide of the civilian population in Ukraine,” says the justification for the restrictions. At the same time, the family previously had a business in Ukraine — they owned the Agro-Industrial Company Commonwealth of Ukraine. Last year, the Belarusian transport company Sodruzhestvo Trans-Agro also came under Ukrainian sanctions.

According to the publication “Belarusians and the Market,” mitigating the consequences and preempting the possibility of introducing restrictions from other countries, the businessman in 2022-2023 carried out a reorganization of companies in Ukraine, Lithuania and some other so-called unfriendly states.