As the correspondent of The Moscow Post reports, Viktor Vekselberg and Roman Trotsenko decided to jointly develop the local Sokol airport in the Magadan region.
Experts believe that the oligarchs could have been specially invited to the region at the request of the Governor Sergey Nosov. Nosov may have an interest in another business in which Trotsenko and Vekselberg may participate.
The head of the region is no ordinary person: detractors attribute to him the ownership of a large ore-producing asset, Lex Electa LLC.
The company is engaged in the extraction of valuable metals, including a license to develop the Suroyamskoye Deposit of titanium-magnetite ores, which are unique in their reserves and range of minerals. Its proven reserves amount to 11 billion tons, and many entrepreneurs would like to enter the project together with Lex Electa.
This may explain the sudden interest in the reconstruction of such "monsters" as Trotsenko. The oligarch is actively entering the mining business. He recently owned a stake in the Petropavlovsk gold mining company.
In February 2020, Roman Trotsenko's structure Aeon Mining entered into an agreement with UGC of another prominent mining oligarch Konstantin Strukov to sell 22.4% of Petropavlovsk to it. That day, this package was worth $177 million on the London stock exchange, as Vedomosti writes.
Earlier, Trotsenko stated that he wanted to consolidate a number of mining assets. As RBC wrote, he was eyeing another company, GV Gold.
The Governor-earner
But, apparently, that deal did not meet his expectations. Is it always easier to work with the Governor of a Russian region than with a competitor in the market? Moreover, the Magadan region is very interesting for Trotsenko, for Strukov, who is not a stranger to him, and for Vekselberg and Deripaska.
According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Magadan region, 2018 was a record year for gold production in the region over the past 20 years. Kolyma mineral resources gave about 36.8 tons of gold: 18.9 of ore, and over 17.8 tons of placer. About 696.4 tons of silver were also extracted.
But how can the Governor of the Russian region own a mining company? Not directly, of course. Lex Electa LLC belongs to the Cyprian offshore Cymoon Limited. It is classic, while the company for 2019 has no revenue, but has a profit of more than 40 million rubles with 263 million rubles of asset value.
If we look at this Cyprus offshore through the register of legal entities of this country, we can find that the Director of the company is a certain Nadezhda Nosova. By a strange coincidence, this is the name of the wife of the head of the Magadan region Sergey Nosov.
Nadezhda Nosova is listed as the Director of CYMOON LIMITED
Another indicative detail: a certain Boris Chernyakhovsky remains the permanent head of Lex Electa. It seems that the Manager is very closed from the press. It turned out that he, too, was not a stranger to Nosov. Chernyakhovsky began at the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, where Nosov worked at his time. They both left almost at the same time.
Later, Chernyakhovsky worked as a technical Director at RusSpetsStal, where Sergey Nosov was the General Director in 2007-2009. Even before that, Nosov managed to work at the rank of Vice-President for technology policy of EvrazHolding LLC of Roman Abramovich, so he must have an extensive network of connections with Russian oligarchs.
By the way, at the same Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works Nosov and Chernyakhovsky worked with another famous character - the former Governor of the Chelyabinsk region Boris Dubrovsky. It was under him that the region adopted a program for the construction of MPP just at the deposit pleased by Lex Electa.
According to Novaya Gazeta, in the past Dubrovsky was accused of abuse of office and causing damage to the region by 20 billion rubles. The latter hastened to retire to Switzerland before the case was closed, though Lex Electa is still working peacefully in the region.
The shadow of Gaddafi
So the Nosov family is not much "hidden" at all. Apparently, from a sense of self-importance, because members of the same family became almost legendary after the story of the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The latter died during the civil war in 2011, but before that, a scandal was rumbling all over Europe.
It turned out that the French President of that time, Nicolas Sarkozy, who ordered the bombing of Libya, received money for his election campaign from this politician.
And the intermediary in the transfer of funds could be none other than the French businessman Alexander (Ahmed) Juhri. According to Novaya Gazeta, Juhri is a relative of Sergey Nosov, who in those years held a post of the mayor of Nizhny Tagil. According to the authors of Novaya Gazeta, Nosov's daughter married Juhri’s son.
Much later, in 2018, after the death of Gaddafi, a corruption scandal broke out in connection with Sarkozy's financing, which quickly appeared in the media. It came to the detention of Nicolas Sarkozy in a corruption case.
Just in those years (the end of the tenth) Nosov already had a serious weight in business, despite working in the municipality of Nizhny Tagil. Let us remind that Lex Electa acquired the license to develop the Suroyamskoye field back in 2007. Nizhny Tagil tightly sat on the credit needle under Nosov: most of the 2 billion debts of the city accounted for loans. In addition, we must not forget that Uralvagonzavod, located near Nizhny Tagil, fell into a financial hole under mayor Sergey Nosov.
Before Nosov arrived in the Magadan region from Tagil, political scientists modestly assessed his prospects. As stated by the Deputy of the City Duma of Nizhny Tagil, political expert Konstantin Kiselev, Nosov is a manager who can manage well when there is a lot of money and there is no need to count it. "But to take 10 billion, so that 5 of them disappeared somewhere, and 5 went to a useful cause - this is "in Nosov style", Versiya quotes Kiselyov’s words.
Apparently, in the story of the airport, even more funds may be lost. Perhaps he does not intend to stay longer than one term. At the beginning of 2020, the rating of governors of the Far Eastern region by Minchenko Consulting was released according to the rating of the State Council 2.0, where Nosov was second from the end.
According to some Media, during the management of the region, Nosov did not solve existing problems, but accumulated new ones. For example, waste is taken away more rarely, students are delayed scholarships and hospitals in villages are being closed. If the Governor thinks more about the business and invites oligarchs to help, it makes sense.
Nosov managed to quarrel with the local elites and, as they say, he skillfully solves problems with "undesirables". As soon as he arrived, Nosov dismissed head of the Governor's office Anna Rezvaya, for not being able to indicate in her income statement the amount of 33 thousand rubles. And this is despite the fact that Nosov's wife can manage Cyprus offshore companies, and the Deputy head of the Youth Affairs Department Alexey Popkov is strangely "forgiven" (the usual reprimand) for 180 thousand rubles not specified in the Declaration.
And this is not remembering the usual rudeness and strong words that detractors attribute to the Governor.
Most likely, he will begin to master what he gained "honestly" after his departure from office.