The sale represents the largest stake that a foreign investor has publicly taken in a privatized Russian industrial firm.
An official with Danone, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the company plans to invest $10 million into modernization of Bolshevik's producing and packaging facilities.
"Bolshevik is part of our expansion throughout the world," the official said in a telephone interview from the company's headquarters in Paris.
The official said that the French firm, which had been in cooperation with Bolshevik for five years, would produce Danone chocolate-covered and filled cookies at the factory to sell on the local market.
Bolshevik, located in Moscow on Leningradsky Prospekt, is famous for its brand-name filled wafers Lesnaya Byl and Chyornaya Smorodina. The factory, which employs 2,500 workers, spearheaded Russia's privatization program when it went private in December 1992.
Unlike many other Russian companies, Bolshevik has not cut its production under new economic conditions, said Galina Kaplunova, chief economist with Bolshevik. "We produce as much as trading companies require," she said in a telephone interview.
According to a Danone news release, Bolshevik's 1993 sales equaled $28 million and production amount came to 60,000 metric tons. Bolshevik officials refused to comment on the figures.
Danone Group, which opened its first and only shop in Moscow in 1992, is currently constructing a factory in Togliatti to make its brand-name yogurts, the Danone official said.
Danone bought the equity stake from Alfa-Kapital investment fund, which acquired the shares at a voucher auction in 1992 under the Russian privatization program, Kaplunova said. Alfa-Kapital representatives would not comment on the sale.
Last year, Alfa-Kapital clashed with Bolshevik directors when it tried to use its stake to obtain a seat on the board and influence management. But Yevgeny Shidayev, head of public relations at Alfa-Kapital, said the two sides had long since buried their differences.
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