Leaving attempts to shake a billion rubles borrowed for a project on their own from a would-be borrower, the ВЭБ.РФ state corporation decided to transfer this honor to anyone. The right to claim debt from Yug-Agro in the amount of more than 2.04 billion rubles will try to sell on the second attempt at the end of February 2023. Details in the material The Moscow Post.
And who is the beneficiary of the billion?
According to the unified state register of legal entities, Yug-Agro LLC today belongs to Andzor Unezhev and a certain Temur Abazov.
Unezhev, judging by the data of the rusprofile.ru, had no business interests in Kabardino-Balkaria before joining the owners of Yug-Agro LLC. His entire business was concentrated in St. Petersburg and was far from agriculture. This may indicate that Unezhev is only a nominal co-owner.
Abazov also previously showed no interest in agriculture. His business portfolio included only one asset - Loza LLC, which worked in the field of wholesale alcohol in Kabardino-Balkaria. At the same time, the company was liquidated in November 2021 after bankruptcy. The Loza company was registered in the city of Baksan.
Two businessmen, far from agriculture, create a company and a few years after the creation declare an investment project, for which they ask for a large amount from the state corporation. What's the catch? Are the nominal owners both citizens?
In 2018, the authors of the Business Online website approved the Yakoba Temur Abazov was associated with the billionaire deputy, the "vodka king" of Kabardino-Balkaria Anatoly Bifov, who represented the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the VI, VII and VIII convocations in the State Duma and owned a whole group of alcohol companies in Kabardino-Balkaria, and from 2008 to 2011 he was the head of the administration of the city of Baksan. It was in Bifov's hometown that Temur Abazov's alcohol trading company later worked.
After Bifov went into power, he tried to verbally distance himself from the vodka business, even stating that he had sold it. But, according to media reports, some of the assets are still under the control of members of the vodka king's family. The Moscow Post in April 2022 already reported that State Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Anatoly Bifov may be among the interested parties in the privatization of Rosspirtprom.
Bifov, in turn, was associated with the former head of Kabardino-Balkaria, a representative from the executive body of state power of Kabardino-Balkaria in the Federation Council Arsen Kanokov (person involved in the Forbes rating "200 richest businessmen in Russia - 2021"). Earlier, The Moscow Post reported in detail about this connection in the article "Arrest of Zhamborov - a blow to Kanokov?"
For example, Bifov co-founded the Foundation for Good Deeds in Nalchik, among the creators of which was also Arsen Kanokov. Both were also co-founders of the Kabardino-Balkarian public organization "KBR Wrestling Federation."
Many also associated Bifov with the notorious Arashukov clan, whose heads in 2022 were convicted at once under a number of articles of the criminal code, including for theft of gas worth 4.4 billion rubles. There were rumors that this connection with the Arashukovs helped to avoid responsibility for debts to VEB of the Yug-Agro company at one time.
Buyers outlined?
Meanwhile, VLK INOK LLC, as well as related legal entities - INOK LLC, Global City LLC and Glass Montazh LLC, can take part in the tender for the assignment of debt claim rights with Yug-Agro, and this, despite the direct ban in the tender documentation on the sale of debt to persons affiliated with the debtor. We suspect that the requirement for the company's unaffiliation in this case may well be circumvented, since legal ties, like those ends, have long been thrown into the water. But in fact, the picture is as follows.
The owner of a 40% stake in Yug-Agro LLC, Andzor Unezhev, at the time of the sentencing in the criminal case, according to media reports, served as deputy general director of the company with the name VLK INOK LLC. And, of course, by pure coincidence, Unezhev was previously the owner of Inok CJSC, which worked in the same field of timber trade as VLK Inok LLC (such an entertaining coincidence of names). There is a certain Innok company operating in the same industry in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. Its owner is Yuri Abrokov. Abrokov is a former co-owner of VLK Inok LLC. That is, legally, as such, there is no affiliation, if we argue with purely terminology, now, and these companies will be able to participate in the VEB tender. And what, in fact, we see.
Another company mentioned above is a potential bidder of the state corporation - Glass Montazh LLC. In the unified state register of legal entities, among the co-owners of a certain Glass Montazh LLC, there is also Andzor Unezhev, albeit with a note about the unreliability of the information. The company itself is quite muddy. Judge for yourself: for all the founders, the tax authority made a note of unreliability, then in 2021 the company goes into the status of "liquidation process," then returns to the status of the current one, and the same way goes in 2022. It feels like the company exists only on paper, but it may well be involved in the tender, and then the ends into the water and remember what they called.
So the question arises, who in the end was the beneficiary of that billion rubles that sailed through the "South-Agro" in an unknown direction? Should only Unezhev now look at the sky in a cage? It is possible that it is the sale of the right to claim the debt that will lead to the ultimate beneficiaries.