The closed unit investment fund (ZIPF) associated with Andrey Melnichenko's SUEK holding will soon complete the acquisition of Neftetransservice (NTS), the third largest freight railway operator in Russia.
Barely fighting off the claims of the Prosecutor General's Office, demanding the return of Sibeko to the state, the oligarch again began to expand his business empire. But the one who was behind the sale of Sibeko - Mikhail Abyzov, recently finally received a court verdict.
Details - in the material of the correspondent of The Moscow Post.
The sellers were brothers Vyacheslav and Vadim Aminov and their partner Alexei Lichtenfeld. The amount of the transaction is unknown - a number of experts call 50-100 billion rubles, but others claim that the NTS car fleet alone costs at least 150 billion rubles.
The company's shares will go to ZIPF, which is managed by Kinetic Capital LLC. Formally, it is not connected with Melnichenko, but she has no money for such a purchase, so she received an appropriate loan from SUEK. Maybe in this way Andrei Melnichenko is trying to hide the fact of ownership from Western sanctions?
At the same time, the NTS will carry mainly coal, although it previously specialized in liquid cargo. Extra tanks will have to be sold. Perhaps there is already an agreement on this with some large oil company of the Russian Federation.
The total volume of NTS state contracts came close to 200 billion rubles, this is a real gold mine. Judging by the fact that the largest customer is JSC RN-Trans, it is Rosneft that can buy the tanks from Melnichenko. Maybe the head of the state corporation Igor Sechin could contribute to the transaction with the oligarch?
Considering that Andrei Melnichenko took control of a good half of the energy sector of the Far East, we previously assumed that Deputy Prime Minister, plenipotentiary in the Far Eastern Federal District Yuri Trutnev could patronize him.
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
But the deal to buy NTS was almost instantly approved by the FAS. And this is against the background of the recent scandal with the heat generating company Sibeko, which Melnichenko acquired from the structures of the former Minister for Open Government Affairs Mikhail Abyzov.
The deal took place in 2018, and in 2019 Mikhail Abyzov was detained on a whole heap of charges. Just the other day, the ex-minister finally announced the verdict: he was found guilty of fraud, creating a criminal regime, legalizing funds and commercial bribery. He will spend the next 12 years in custody.
It turns out, being a minister, Mikhail Abyzov was engaged in entrepreneurial activity. Earlier, the TFR explained that Abyzov actually controlled SUEK, in which he had a 95% stake. And also a bunch of other companies, counting offshore - and all without leaving the cabinet.
Isn't that corruption? And was it not worth asking Melnichenko questions about the Abyzov case?
Perhaps the assumption of a corruption component became the main one for the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office, which intended to seize Sibeko from Melnichenko in favor of the state.
Did the now convicted Mikhail Abyzov help Andrei Melnichenko collect his energy empire? Photo: https://static.mk.ru/upload/entities/2023/12/21/20/photoreportsImages/detailPicture/81/ff/a5/bd/de1d24ecdafde8a81f0a809512f1fa07.jpg
However, the attempt was unsuccessful - after several meetings, the parties suddenly "agreed." Assuming that Melnichenko really stands among the high patrons, it becomes clear why the control and supervisory authority failed. Not to mention the fact that the oligarch at the end of 2023 turned out to be the richest man in the country - his fortune grew by $14 billion at once. Is even the Prosecutor General's Office not like a decree?
But this was the first case when the Prosecutor General's Office failed to cancel the results of privatization. Earlier, the courts satisfied the requirements for the shares of PJSC TGK-2, Kaliningrad Marine and Metafrax Chemicals.
The state is always in the red
But earlier Melnichenko's transactions raised questions. You can recall the large-scale exchange of assets that took place between SUEK and the state corporation RusHydro, even when it was headed by the notorious Nikolai Shulginov.
The transaction included the exchange of the Luchegorsk coal mine owned by RusHydro - and the technologically related Primorskaya GRES by 41.98%, owned by a group of minority shareholders in the authorized capital of the Far Eastern Energy Company (DEK), which owns the Far Eastern Generating Company (DGK) and the Far Eastern Distribution Grid Company (DRSK).
The salt is that at the time of the sale, DGK's debts amounted to 65.8 billion rubles, where 40.5 billion was an extra-debt loan from RusHydro as part of a forward transaction with VTB. It turns out that the state took over the debts? Just an incredible success! It can be assumed how happy Shulginov was.
Even before that, in 2010, Melnichenko received a 4.5% stake in RusHydro, having sold the state corporation a non-core asset for itself - a block package of the Krasnoyarsk State District Power Plant. Many experts consider these transactions unprofitable for the state. Moreover, the main task of Mr. Shulginov at RusHydro seems to have been a large-scale sale of his conditionally non-core assets.
Recall that under this groundhog, RusHydro conducted an additional issue of shares for 85 billion rubles, which was paid by VTB. I.e. in any case, the state pays for everything.
Working for someone else's economy
Another big question is whose economy Melnichenko's companies work for, and whose Neftetransservice will work for? In 2022, just as the oligarch came under Western sanctions, both of his key assets, Eurochem and SUEK, said he had withdrawn from their capital and governing bodies.
Earlier, Melnichenko controlled 90% of the parent company EuroChem Group AG (Switzerland), through the Cypriot AIM Capital SE. SUEK was also controlled by approximately the same scheme. However, Melnichenko's share passed automatically to his wife Alexandra, who is a citizen of Serbia and Croatia, and she does not have Russian citizenship.
But what about the President's call for deoffshorization? Where other oligarchs, even such scandalous offshore lovers as Vladimir Potanin, re-register their firms in the Russian Federation, Melnichenko decided to "pretend to be a crane." It turns out that millions of consumers in the Far East depend on a person whose main, life interests are in the West?
And there, as well as a full set - elite real estate, as reported by the Tsargrad TV channel, in London (decorated for the Bermuda offshore Valton Limited) and other wonderful places, a family living in Switzerland for more than ten years, and so on.
Andrey Melnichenko rakes up trying to prove his right to live in Switzerland. Photo: https://finbi.ru/uploads/fotos/20210813_153335.jpg
The whole of 2023, as Kommersant wrote, was the oligarch's proceedings with the Swiss authorities, who refuse to maintain his residence permit in their country.
What next strategic asset will Andrey Melnichenko acquire? The media believe that it may be the largest Ryazan state district power station in Europe, which is part of a subsidiary of Gazprom. Only the Prosecutor General's Office would not have to challenge this deal later.