On July 11th in Paris FIDE President Kirsan Ilyunzhinov met with Mr. Serge Varsano, President and majority shareholder of Groupe Sucres & Denrees (Sucden).
Besides the business projects and Mr. Ilyumzhinov’s entry to membership of shareholders, the issues of mutual cooperation between FIDE and Sucden have been negotiated. Particularly the participation of Sucden in FIDE Chess in Schools programme. The both sides took into consideration the importance of sugar consumption by children and the importance of intellectual development of young generation. The idea of implementing the project under the tentative slogan “Chess - Sugar for Children” has been discussed.


Groupe Sucres & Denrees (Sucden) was founded by Maurice Varsano in 1952. His son, Serge Varsano, is the President and majority shareholder of the company. Sucden’s main activity is sugar trading, where the Group ranks amongst the world leaders with a market share of about 20% of free market volumes. Over the years, the Group has expanded its scope of activities, complementing the International Trading activities: engineering division based in Paris; distribution of white sugar in Russia, Mexico, Peru and Chile; refining and sugar production in Russia, logistics in Brazil; ethanol trading; cocoa processing.