Stefan Soloviev needs to vary agriculture with Colorado farmland

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LAMAR

Stefan Soloviev was in his 20s when he began shopping for farmland in Kansas, jap Colorado and New Mexico.

The born-and-raised New York Metropolis child was studying the ropes of farming and he visited Prowers County for the primary time again then and wished to take a look at a big farm he’d simply acquired. 

“It was 6 miles off the paved highway and I’m driving and every little thing seems the identical and I’m driving and driving and I lastly get to the property and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m in the midst of nowhere.’ And I had a little bit of a panic assault,” he says throughout a wandering interview with The Colorado Solar. “I’ll always remember that first trip right here. It’s gotten simpler. You alter. You alter to your environment. You begin to grow to be a part of the group.”

Since he purchased his first 309-acre farm in Sumner County, Kansas, within the late Nineties, Soloviev has grow to be some of the influential members of Colorado’s Jap Plains farming group. He’s amassed greater than 400,000 acres — 625 sq. miles — rating the 48-year-old because the Twenty sixth-largest landowner within the nation. He runs about 5,000 head of cattle in New Mexico and grows about 1,000,000 bushels of milo — a sort of sorghum — and wheat, in addition to grass for his cattle — in Colorado and Kansas. 

In early Might, he spent 36 hours serving to to load a 110-grain-car unit practice along with his personal and his neighbors’ milo at his newly constructed, 5 million-bushel Weskan Grain elevator in jap Kiowa County. The practice trundled the harvest on his 122-mile Colorado Pacific Railroad — often called the Towner Line — to the nationwide rail community east of Pueblo. 

Soloviev purchased that railroad in 2018 for $10 million after a protracted battle with an organization that deliberate to scrap all the line. He spent $3.5 million rehabbing the tracks that created communities like Arlington, Haswell, Eads, Chivington, Brandon, Sheridan Lake and Towner as a part of his imaginative and prescient to construct “a farmer-friendly, farmer-first” firm that may compete with worldwide agricultural conglomerates that management many of the grain grown within the nation.

It was the primary time a practice had run on the historic Towner Line since 1996. And it was the fruits of almost 20 years of labor for Soloviev, the son of a New York Metropolis actual property baron who constructed his personal agricultural empire on the Colorado plains.

“I name it the best achievement of my life,” he says.

Hours after loading that practice in Might, he jumped on a industrial flight to New York the place he made a uncommon public look at an actual property discussion board hosted by The Actual Deal enterprise journal. The founding father of The Actual Deal, Amir Korangy, saved asking Soloviev about his New York Metropolis actual property plans whereas Soloviev steered the dialog again to railroads and farming. With a bandage on his hand from an damage sustained from loading the practice automobiles the night time earlier than, Soloviev expounded on his mission to construct his Weskan Grain firm to compete with international companies like Cargill — which reported $177 billion in income for 2023 — and Archer Daniels Midland — which reported $97 billion in income for 2023. 

“I don’t want cash. Cash isn’t essential. I need to construct this ag firm and make it superb and I actually assume I can due to the folks I’ve. However cash, it simply doesn’t imply a lot to me,” he instructed the New York Metropolis crowd, urging them to “step out of the bubble so a lot of you might be in” to see the huge, not-real-estate markets exterior town.

Soloviev has tattoos from his wrists to his shoulders on each arms. On his proper forearm are railroad rails that begin splintered close to his elbow however come collectively into tidy tracks close to his wrist. Every tie marks an essential yr of his life, he explains. He didn’t fairly have all of it collectively in his early 30s however he had a path, he says. 

“Then all of it begins coming collectively proper right here,” he says, tracing his finger towards his wrist. 

48 with 22 youngsters

Right here’s the place Soloviev is at proper now: He’s 48 however might go for 30. He’s single and has 22 children, all beneath the age of 21. He’s remodeling the agricultural business in jap Colorado, offering each storage and practice shipments for native farmers with two railroads and a brand new grain elevator that he plans to develop to carry 7 million bushels.  

Yeah, we have to know extra about these children. He married Stacey, a Mormon from Montana, at age 22 they usually divorced a decade in the past after having 11 children. 

“Then life occurred,” says Soloviev, who lives in Florida however spent a lot of the previous decade in Sacramento, California. “The final 10 years have been fairly a run.”

The Land Report’s annual checklist of the highest 100 landowners within the nation for 2022 ranks him Twenty sixth with 408,000 acres in Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico. (That’s various acres however not even 1 / 4 of the two.2 million acres owned by Colorado cable magnate John Malone, who’s No. 2 on the 2022 Land Report land baron checklist.) However as of December, when he took out full-page advertisements in native newspapers throughout jap Colorado, Soloviev says he’s accomplished shopping for land. 

After twenty years of paying as little as $200 an acre for farms throughout the plains of Kansas and Colorado, he now needs to lease all his farmland again to native farmers. If all goes as deliberate he’ll cease farming on roughly 130,000 acres in jap Colorado and western Kansas, and let different farmers develop grain to retailer in his Weskan Grain elevator at Sheridan Lake close to the Kansas border. 

“As a result of I can see that the farmer is affected by me earning money off the land,” he says, noting how the worth of acres has appreciated exponentially since he first started shopping for farms “and that’s cash farmers might have made.”

Soloviev was in his 20s when he left New York and the East Coast and headed west to farm nation. He didn’t get alongside along with his father, actual property tycoon and artwork collector Sheldon Solow. Soloviev modified his title again to its Russian roots and moved West. He traded commodities, together with grain. He noticed alternatives within the agricultural business, particularly if he might management the precise manufacturing of the commodity. He moved his younger and rising household to Wichita, Kansas, and Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and spent years working with native farmers. 

Within the early 2000s, he began shopping for extra land. His dad, with an almost $5 billion portfolio of artwork, condominium buildings and workplace area in New York Metropolis, was not a part of this plan. 

“I purchased every little thing as a result of I knew it was going to go up and I might purchase every little thing as a result of I knew the best way to play the farm credit score system.”

— Stefan Soloviev, on how he amassed land

He labored with farm credit score bureaus — he rigorously spells out the title of a New Mexico banker who shepherded all his offers — and leveraged the federal farm credit score system to spend many tens of millions of federally sponsored loans on land with 30-year rates of interest round 2%. The federal farm program provides low-interest loans for land that shall be used for crops. 

“I feel there was animosity from the land I’ve purchased … nicely, not animosity however annoyance as a result of I used to be successful each public sale, you realize, for 20 years,” he says. “I purchased every little thing as a result of I knew it was going to go up and I might purchase every little thing as a result of I knew the best way to play the farm credit score system.”

As he strikes away from land acquisition and rising crops, Soloviev needs farmers to see him in another way. He’s not a competitor making an attempt to outgrow them. He’s the man combating to get the perfect worth for everybody’s grain. 

So the pitch seems like this: Hire his farmland at market charges. Develop your individual grains. Truck them to Soloviev’s grain elevator near the Colorado-Kansas border. Then ship the grain on his new Colorado Pacific Railroad to Pueblo to entry Union Pacific’s nationwide rail community. Soloviev says finally he needs to develop into the worldwide exporting enterprise with cargo ships that may transfer Colorado grain “so far as I can take it.”

“I imagine with all this, I can get farmers probably the most sum of money for his or her grain,” he says. “Subsequent on my checklist is moving into the exporting enterprise, perhaps with a devoted port. Some years are going to be native years, with no exporting. However in export years, that farmer who’s trusting me with their grain and I get it to a port and onto my very own bulk carriers to take it to the top consumer wherever on the planet, that’s extra margin for me and more cash for farmers. Particularly the farmers who imagine in me. And there’s loads of them.”

Colorado farmers ready and watching

John Stulp has by no means met Soloviev however he definitely is aware of about him. The previous state Commissioner of Agriculture and Prowers County commissioner whose household has farmed and ranched in southeastern Colorado for a lot of many years says he has “combined feelings” about Soloviev’s position on the Jap Plains. 

Typically, longtime farmers on the plains are leery of somebody coming into the area and shopping for land with cash that was made exterior of agriculture, Stulp says. 

It’s already arduous for dryland farmers who depend on just-enough rain to develop grain to pay their payments and “it’s actually arduous to compete with individuals who are available in with money they created from different investments,” says Stulp, repeating a typical lament throughout Colorado as folks from out-of-state purchase houses, spiking prices for longtime residents. 

In his many years of farming, Stulp can not recall a person like Soloviev coming in and consolidating farms. That consolidation means there are fewer family-owned farms within the area and that has a ripple impact on the social cloth of plains communities, Stulp says. However he’s intrigued by Soloviev’s concentrate on integrating railroad-accessible storage and transportation into his enterprise and by the billionaire’s promise to stop shopping for land. 

“It will likely be attention-grabbing to see what this (promise to not purchase land) will do to future land values,” Stulp says

And that’s the place Stulp and his neighbors principally are with Soloviev. Watching and ready. Possibly his push into storage and transportation will present extra alternatives for farmers, with extra choices for promoting their grain in numerous markets. 

When Stulp began many years in the past, he must truck his grain a number of hours throughout two railroad tracks to achieve a railroad that will ship his wheat and milo to markets within the West and the Pacific Northwest. The growth of the Towner Line means he can shortly transfer his grain south to ports within the Gulf of Mexico.

“I feel he might be opening up new alternatives for not simply present farmers, however younger folks hoping to get into agriculture,” Stulp says. “There are undoubtedly positives and there are negatives too. However I don’t see them as enormous positives or enormous negatives. I feel most of us out listed below are going to attend and see how this all unfolds within the coming many years. I imply if he’s on this for the long run and he’s bought that many children, I wager there are some entrepreneurs in there who will give you much more new concepts for his lands out right here.”

Soloviev is assured his plan will work as he spends each different week — alongside along with his 20-year-old son Quintin — in jap Colorado, assembly with farmers and displaying them a brand new, native choice for rising crops and transferring their grain to market. 

The main agribusinesses that serve jap Colorado — Bartlett Grain Co. out of Kansas Metropolis, Cargill out of Minnesota and Scoular out of Omaha — aren’t native, he says. 

“I’m primarily based in Sheridan Lake, Colorado. I’m the native selection,” he says. “We’re going to compete and we’re going to present everybody we’re the only option. I’m the chairman of an enormous conglomerate however that is my precedence.”

He and Quintin principally go to with farmers when they’re in Colorado, negotiating leases for his land. 

“Everybody needs to lease floor,” he says. “Half the farmers we go to of their homes have a look at one another and say, ‘When was the final time the proprietor or CEO of Scoular or Bartlett was in my lounge having a beer with me and speaking about shopping for wheat?’ We’re shaking issues up in western Kansas and jap Colorado.”

Peter Martin, an accounting marketing consultant who has labored with Soloviev for the previous decade, stated Soloviev “has extra respect for rural America than he does for Manhattan.”

Soloviev isn’t prepared to completely endorse that, at the very least not with a reporter. However he’s connecting with rural farmers. 

“Hopefully our means of being a farmer-first, farmer-friendly native grain elevator, in 5 years I can get everybody out right here to imagine in me,” Soloviev says. “I’ve not confirmed it to them but. However I’ll. It’s my purpose to take action. Simply be affected person with me.” 

“That is the primary inning”  

The Soloviev Group empire is numerous and rising. He’s bought close to full occupancy of the enduring 9 West 57th Avenue skyscraper his father in-built Midtown Manhattan in 1974, which has 1.4 million sq. toes of workplace area. He’s planning 1,325 houses, a on line casino, museum, lodge and almost 5 acres of inexperienced area on six acres in Manhattan’s East Facet. He’s bought farms and vineyards on 2,000 acres within the North Fork peninsula of New York’s Lengthy Island. There are hashish operations and a winery in California. Mining in Nevada. Residence constructing in Florida and Texas. Wine bars in South Florida and New York Metropolis. Large landscaping firms in Florida and New York.

He’s bought near 350,000 acres deeded and leased in New Mexico the place he runs round 5,000 head of cattle. There are farms in Quebec. A nascent photo voltaic and wind power venture is erecting photo voltaic farms on 7,500 acres in Colorado and 70 wind generators in New Mexico. He’s been speaking about reviving a minor league baseball stadium in Rhode Island. He’s bought a charitable basis that serves underprivileged children and lately despatched $1 million to Ukraine.

The on line casino, the skyscraper, the wineries, the ballpark, the homebuilding, “that’s the flashy stuff,” he says. 

“My precedence in my lifetime is that this,” he says, slapping a desk in an empty workplace at his accountant’s headquarters in Lamar, the place he meets recurrently along with his Colorado staff. “As a result of I imagine this — all of the farmland and dealing with the grain and exporting it and being the primary domestically owned, vertically built-in ag firm in Colorado and Kansas and all our meat manufacturing in New Mexico — is crucial factor I’ll do in my life. It’s all long run and that is the primary inning. I’m not going to cease till I get there. It’s my lifelong venture.”

Shopping for railroads

Soloviev stated he was “considering exterior the field” when he made a play to purchase Union Pacific’s long-dormant Tennessee Cross Line between Dotsero and Cañon Metropolis. He thought perhaps the road would work to maneuver grain west. He dropped his $10 million bid — which included a plan to speculate near $278 million in repairs for the roughly 160 miles of observe that has not seen trains since 1997 — in Might, saying he wished to concentrate on “having an excellent relationship” with Union Pacific. (The builders of the seemingly stalled Uinta Basin Railway venture in Utah have additionally proposed reviving the Tennessee Cross Line and that group’s plan stoked considerations that crude oil might be transferring by means of communities like Avon, Minturn, Leadville, Buena Vista and Salida.)

As an alternative of pursuing Tennessee Cross, Soloviev paid $10.7 million for the historic San Luis & Rio Grande Railroad in November 2022. The 155-mile railroad connects the San Luis Valley with the nationwide rail community south of Pueblo. A group effort within the valley is pushing to develop leisure trails that will comply with and intersect with the railroad tracks and Soloviev is amenable to working with locals to permit entry. One other bidder for that railroad, Denver-based Omnitrax, raised considerations with San Luis Valley recreation promoters with a coverage that has prohibited bike paths close to the corporate’s almost two dozen railroads. 

Soloviev referred to as the San Luis Valley railroad — which he renamed the Colorado Pacific Rio Grande after buying it out of a chapter public sale — “secondary.” He stated with prospects like agribusiness conglomerate Wilbur-Ellis in Monte Vista and the valley’s vibrant assortment of potato farmers, he’s assured he could make the railroad “worthwhile and work long run.” However he admits his focus now could be on the Towner Line. He’s visited the Colorado Pacific Rio Grande line 4 occasions previously yr and stated he’s “open to something” so long as the railroad stays worthwhile. 

“If leisure trails are essential to folks in that space, then I’m keen to hearken to them,” he says. “I imply, I’m not going to be placing a lot cash into recreation, however merely permitting entry, 100% I’m high-quality with that.”

Soloviev stated he can be keen to work with smaller companies that need to construct sidings and warehouses subsequent to his tracks within the San Luis Valley.

“We need to generate enterprise and work with anybody over there. We need to make that railroad work,” he says. “I must be taught extra about that space. It’s so stunning.”

I imagine this … is crucial factor I’ll do in my life.

— Stefan Soloviev, on his agricultural ambitions

Mick Daniel, the manager director of San Luis Valley Nice Outdoor, has spoken with Soloviev a couple of occasions about trails alongside the railroad right-of-way. Daniel in 2022 obtained one of many first federally funded grants supplied by the Colorado outside recreation workplace to assist plan the 154-mile “Coronary heart of the Valley Path” that may knit sections of trails right into a valleywide recreation path. 

“It took him a minute to orient with who we had been, however he undoubtedly expressed curiosity in working with us on the path hall,” Daniel says, noting that Soloviev gave him his cellphone quantity. (The opposite billionaires within the San Luis Valley, New York financier and conservationist Louis Bacon and Texas-based William Harrison, don’t share their cellphone numbers with many residents of the valley.)

Soloviev was clear with Daniel that he wished to function a worthwhile railroad and Daniel was equally clear in his place that recreation and an out of doors financial system might help help a vibrant group that will feed the success of the Colorado Pacific Rio Grande Railroad. 

“I feel the leisure financial system right here can work alongside the railroad and assist the valley,” Daniel says. 

Completely different than his dad

Later this month Soloviev will start his biweekly journeys to Colorado with Quintin, who’s the third in cost on the Soloviev Group. The night time earlier than the 2 sat down for lengthy conferences in Lamar final month, they flew into Denver Worldwide Airport. Soloviev pulls out his telephone and reveals a selfie of the pair grinning at the back of a Spirit Airways aircraft. 

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“Hey, we’re economical,” he says. “There’s no cause to blow cash if you don’t should. These are some actual tight seats, you realize.”

Quintin’s equivalent twin, Hayden, additionally works intently along with his dad and is answerable for the group’s Atlantic Area — orchards, vineyards, landscaping firms and a lodge — alongside his mother, Stacey. (Soloviev says his former spouse is “my finest pal.”)

Soloviev didn’t work along with his dad like that. The famed artwork collector and cantankerous New York Metropolis developer Sheldon Solow was famend for protracted lawsuits and he didn’t have an in depth relationship along with his sons.

“My father didn’t know the best way to speak to a 20-year-old. He didn’t know the best way to spend time with a 20-year-old and have enjoyable,” he stated. “My relationship with Quintin is 100% polar reverse of what I had with my father.”

Two years earlier than Solow died in November 2020 at age 92, Soloviev returned to work along with his father and commenced to take the reins of the household’s estimated $4.4 billion property. Soloviev restructured and fashioned his Soloviev Group and offered many of the New York Metropolis condominium buildings he had managed for his father however retained the flagship skyscraper on West 57th Avenue, often called the Solow Constructing. After a renovation, Soloviev doubled the occupancy of the swanky skyscraper with views of Central Park and opened a ground-floor artwork gallery that includes his father’s assortment of masterpieces.

“I’m part of nearly each one in every of my child’s lives. I’m nearer to some than others. When you’ve gotten 22 children that’s only a actuality,” he says. “The children that I’m closest to are past my finest mates.”

Soloviev can speak enterprise for hours, hardly ever pausing between centered descriptions of alternatives and challenges. He stutters a bit when requested what he does for enjoyable. He’s bought a girlfriend they usually journey after they can. He’s in a aggressive flag-football league in Florida and says “I can maintain my very own” towards gamers half his age. Once more with the telephone and a video of him nimbly navigating a gridiron and speaking trash with teammates and opponents. 

“Shut the fuck up.You have to be in a library,” somebody yells within the video on his telephone. 

Soloviev strikes by means of numerous teams. He’s hanging in wheat fields with Colorado farmers in the future. Wearing a customized Armani go well with negotiating advanced New York Metropolis offers the following after which jostling with athletes on a lush Florida pitch the following. Within the hours between, he’s flying along with his son in financial system seats.

“I really feel like I can match into any group, yeah,” he stated. “It’s been a loopy life. It’s been wild and I made it wild, you realize.”