The bankruptcy trustee Otkritie Holding (the main asset is Otkritie Bank) wants to bring several large entrepreneurs to financial responsibility and demands almost 10 billion rubles from Lukoil founder Vagit Alekperov, former vice president of the company Leonid Fedun and four other legal entities - Cyprus Gatecraft Limited, Capital JSC, Private Assets JSC and Reserve Invest LLC "which was previously owned by the same Alekperov and Fedun.
Photo: https://fedresurs.ru
As the correspondent of The Moscow Post managed to find out, the above persons may be involved in the withdrawal from VTB Bank of an amount close to a billion dollars.
"Extra Lemons"
Alekperov and Fedun owned Otkritie Holding along with Vadim Belyaev, VTB Bank, Alexander Nesis's IST Group, Otkritie Bank President Ruben Aganbegyan and entrepreneur Alexander Mamut. At a certain point, Otkrytie had problems and in 2017 the financial institution came under the control of the Central Bank.
But before this happened, the shareholders managed to carry out one extremely controversial deal.
We are talking about the purchase by the holding from Lukoil of shares in the diamond miner AGD. The deal took place in 2017 and Otkritie Holding gave $1.45 billion for the acquisition. For another $170 million, the trading company Grib Diamonds was acquired, which sold mined diamonds at auctions. Not only was it already clear at that time that an imminent collapse was inevitable, and therefore there was no point in investing in new assets, but it also later turned out that the price of the transaction was doubled.
The Trust said that the market value of the company did not exceed $700. This means that in the amount of "Lukoil" could "pump out" from $900 million extra.
With such assumptions, the Federal Antimonopoly Service entered the "stage." In 2020, she demanded to cancel the deal, saying that she could cover the withdrawal of funds. Stating that the holding hid the fact that three of its shareholders had foreign citizenship.
Technology mistrust
For about two years, the courts dragged on this case and as a result, a settlement agreement was concluded, the details of which were not disclosed. We know that for this we conducted an examination, which confirmed the cost of the company at the level of $1.47-1.62 billion, although many independent experts disagreed with this.
The audit was conducted by a firm called Trust Technologies. We managed to find such a company registered in Moscow just in 2022, shortly before the "necessary" document was created.
The company is headed by Mikhail Magrilov, proudly referred to on the official website of the company as "partner, head of practice in the provision of services to state bodies and the public sector." Previously, Mr. Magrilov worked at Rostelecom.
Photo: https://tedo.ru/cv-mikhail-magrilov
"Trust Technologies" has a negative value, zero revenue and negative profit and seems to have been created specifically for a certain purpose. We would not trust such a company, but it seems that it managed to convince both the court and the FAS.
In general, one gets the feeling that the head of the FAS Igor Artemyev was simply "bought" - literally a few months after the end of the story, he resigned. Perhaps having earned himself a decent pension.
From Barsky Kostinsky
At the same time, it is known that the transactions of Otkritie Holding with Lukoil were financed by banks. Fixed assets were issued by the state VTB. In this case, it turns out that hundreds of millions of state rubles could have been leaked in an unknown direction - for example, to the same Cyprus in the same Gatecraft Limited.
Subsequently, VTB for some reason filed a bankruptcy lawsuit against AGD Diamonds. VTB itself indicated that in this way it protects the transaction with its shares from revision. But analysts said that bankruptcy would not help here and associated VTB's actions with the desire to gain control over the company. This version has found its indirect confirmation.
According to VTB, Otkritie Industrial Investments was also bankrupt, which is part of Otkritie Holding and through which the very dubious transactions with the acquisition of Lukoil assets were made. On the balance sheet of the OPI are shares of AGD Diamonds.
Second run?
In August of this year, the bankruptcy trustee sold 100% of the shares of the OPI. According to media reports, the final buyer of the assets was Invest-Sistema LLC, the general director of which is Artyom Aleksanyan. This is an unknown entrepreneur on the market, we were able to find the card of such a football player.
Photo: https://xn--80aacdgla3egkf.xn--p1ai/player2951
And here it would be good to remember that Otkritie Holding was not Alekperov alone. The famous sports functionary Leonid Fedun also had a share there. So did he put his man up for a share buyback? At a price, of course, much lower than Otkritie Holding took the diamond miner.
In this case, an adulterous scheme looms, which may look like this:
First, Alekperov and Co., at an inflated price, sell Lukoil's daughter to the almost bloodless Otkritie Holding for money from the state-owned VTB, and are welded in the amount of almost a billion dollars. And subsequently they redeem the asset back for a penny.
And it is worth adding to all this the fact that Otkritie Holding went into a debt hole, so that funds could also be "pumped out" from it not only according to the "diamond" scheme we described. By the way, we recall that the asset left as a result of VTB. Andrei Kostin clearly did not remain offended in history and would certainly be interested in "tearing up" "Discovery." After all, to finance his financial recovery not so much to him as to the state.
The grass is always greener on the other side
We add that Leonid Fedun in 2022 sold FC Spartak to Lukoil and left all posts. According to journalists, he could leave Russia altogether, since he has a lot of assets abroad. No sanctions have been imposed on him. And there is an explanation for that.
As journalists wrote Life.ru the German edition of Die Welt, in March 2022, a scheme was organized according to which oil from the Bulgarian Lukoil plant through a chain of intermediaries covered up to 40% of the needs of Kyiv and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In fact, Ukrainian tanks could be refueled with Lukoil diesel fuel. And the concern was then run by Fedun.
Leonid Fedun. Photo: Dmitry Azarov/Kommersant
If this is true, then history smacks of not only embezzlement of public funds and their withdrawal abroad, but also treason.
We ask the Investigative Committee to consider this material an official appeal to law enforcement agencies.