Sberbank Market (part of Sberbank) re-registered from Cyprus to a special administrative district (SAR) on Oktyabrsky Island in the Kaliningrad Region. This island is, in fact, a Russian offshore zone, where Russian companies that have registered them abroad have often transferred their legal entities recently.
As the correspondent of The Moscow Post managed to find out, "Smermegamarket" may be a kind of link between the head of Sberbank German Gref and the owners of Sovcombank - the Khotimsky brothers. Details - in the material of The Moscow Post.
Shackled by one "Sbermegamarket"
What attracts attention in this story is that, firstly, the Instamart Holding legal entity, which controlled the asset in Cyprus, has not yet been liquidated and continues to function. This means that it is potentially to remain associated with the "Spermegamarket." The general director of the offshore is a certain Alexandra Pahani. She was also listed as a director of another offshore company - REG HOLDING LIMITED, now liquidated.
Photo: https://opencorporates.com
And here the curious is revealed. REG HOLDING LIMITED, along with Pahan, was managed by Alexander Suzdaltsev, the former owner of RosEuroBank, which merged with Sovcombank of the Khotimsky brothers in 2018. Suzdaltsev, together with the Khotimskys, is currently one of the shareholders of Sovko Capital Partners - this information is available on the analizbankov service.
RosEuroBank did not appear much, not little - in the sensational investigation of OCCRP journalists about the so-called "Moldavian laundry," where about 700 billion Russian rubles were "laundered." Representatives of the bank refused to participate in the scheme as best they could, but the merger with Sovcombank, which occurred after the publication of the investigation data, only intensified gossip about this.
Mutually beneficial cooperation
As The Moscow Post previously reported in its investigation, "While Nabiullina is sleeping": offshore "history" of the Khotimsky brothers, the transaction could have two parties - in addition to the fact that the merger potentially helped Suzdaltsev and his colleagues in RosEuroBank avoid the attention of the security forces (after the merger, information about previous operations in RosEuroBank was almost certainly removed "as unnecessary"), the Khotimsky brothers received an asset that can be used to withdraw money abroad. Still, REG HOLDING LIMITED is an offshore jurisdiction.
Taking into account the "love" of Sovcombank structures for offshore companies, a very likely story.
What is not the way to withdraw money? There is still an echo of the scandal, which received its share of attention on the pages of our publication - we are talking, of course, about the complaints of people who accuse Sovcombank and Khotimsky of fraudulently taking away from them the only housing under loan agreements with "horse interest."
Moreover, despite the hype raised, law enforcement agencies do not seek to help at all and as if they are even "hacking" the case to the root - documents confirming the reluctance of relevant departments to deal with this story came to our editorial office. The victims believe that the Khotimsky "bought everything."
Despite the fact that the bank has very stable positions in the market - so much so that it is actively engaged in acquisitions (in addition to RosEuroBank, the National Factoring Company, Vostochny Express and the insurance MetLife were included in its structure not so long ago), the beginning of last year turned out to be unsatisfactory for the structure, to put it mildly.
Photo: Banki.ru
According to the Banki.ru banking analytics service, in the first month of 2022 the company went into negative territory - a net loss of 674 million rubles. For comparison, a month earlier there was a profit of almost 46 billion rubles. Such figures lead to thoughts of not the cleanest manipulations.
German Oskarovich's cunning plan
What does it turn out - structures close to Sberbank, and therefore to Sberbank, have the opportunity to "twist" not quite "transparent money?
The structure itself was created by one of Gref's closest former deputies - Lev Hasis, whom evil tongues call almost allegedly the holder of Gref's assets abroad. Recall that for about a year Lev Khasis has not been in Russia. The Moscow Post published curious documents indicating that he could be the "shadow" owner of an American firm close to the people of Herman Gref.
It is possible that it was she who went with the onset of sanctions to "save" Hasis. And judging by the fact that the British company SBERCOIN LTD has been registered for a person named German Gref since last year, and he is indicated there as a US citizen, there is every reason to believe that Gref's namesake is going to follow his ex-deputy - closer to the "native" money that could be withdrawn from Russia.
Photo: Register of Legal Entities of the United Kingdom
In addition, it should be noted how deftly Gref has recently "juggled" Sberbank's assets.
In 2022, the bank quickly sold off its digital assets: the Center for Speech Technologies, Evotor, the Sound music platform and even SberCloud. All of them, bought with public money, ended up in private hands. But the profit from the sale could be put by people close to Gref.
Everything is in the black - except for depositors.