March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Capital International Inc. bought a stake in OAO Unimilk, Russia's second-biggest dairy company, to benefit from surging demand for milk and baby food in the former Soviet Union, Unimilk said.
San Francisco-based Capital International's Private Equity Program paid more than $175 million for the shares, Unimilk said in an e-mailed statement today, without identifying the size of the stake. The funds will be spent on expanding existing facilities and opening new ones, Chief Executive Officer Andrei Beskhmelnitskiy said in the statement.
The Moscow-based company has 15 percent of the Russian dairy market and sells its products in Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, its Web site shows. Beskhmelnitskiy and Unimilk's President Andrei Blokh together own more than 50 percent of the company.