Yevtushenkov in "Nature"

The two-year epic ended with the division of the inheritance of the deceased founder of Natura Siberica, Andrei Trubnikov. As our publication suggested, the main assets of the group were transferred to AFK Sistema oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov.

Recently, despite the difficulties and sanctions risks for his business, he has launched unprecedented activity: he is buying up one enterprise after another, as if there is no crisis. Meanwhile, many of his deals can have an unpleasant soul: as with Natura Siberica, where his interests could leave the Trubnikov family without a significant share of the inheritance.

Details - in the material of the correspondent of The Moscow Post.

This story raised questions from the very beginning. The founder of the cosmetic brands Natura Siberica and "Recipes of Grandmother Agafya" Andrei Trubnikov seemed to be not going to leave an inheritance to children at all. Shortly before his death, the businessman made a corresponding statement, but whether this was formalized as the last will of the deceased is unknown.

In the case of AFK Sistema, the situation is completely covered with darkness. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. But it is well known that immediately after Trubnikov left life, a powerful corporate conflict began: children from different marriages and the last wife of the entrepreneur, Anastasia, argued about the division of the inheritance.

Apparently, it was these conflicts and confusion that the enterprising Yevtushenkov could use to persuade the parties to sell the asset in his favor.

Deripaska's "swoop"

Also, he wasn't the only oligarch to make a splash on Natura Siberica. In the struggle for them, the owner of Rusal Oleg Deripaska could also be noted. Moreover, come from an interesting side.

The fact is that the direct heirs of the entrepreneur could claim 40-60% in different structures of the group. In the meantime, other shareholders tried to challenge part of the claims of the heirs, the company itself faced the need to fight back in the courts from the claims of the structures related to Deripaska.

Deripaska claimed a significant part of the company - about 30%, through En + Recycling LLC - a subsidiary of En + Group. LLC "En + Recycling" during the life of Andrei Trubnikov presented his company claims for 4.5 billion rubles. This amount is the company's desired compensation for damage for the burnt warehouse (hangar) of En + Recycling LLC in Dimitrovgrad.

The main legal entity Natura Siberica - LLC "First Decision" was the tenant of this hangar. But the amount of claims looked almost insane, given that Trubnikov's entire cosmetology business was estimated at 3-4 billion rubles. There was even a hypothesis that the fire could be man-made in order to further present claims for Trubnikov's assets.

Oleg Deripaska could also have a laugh at Trubnikov's business, but he was given a turn from the gate in court. Photo: https://forumspb2022.tassphoto.com/album/688

Trubnikov himself was categorically against Deripaska's claims, but did not live to see the court decisions. Initially, the court sided with the structures of the oligarch. Moreover, Trubnikov's ex-wife Irina (one of the largest shareholders) stated that we could talk about a raider seizure ("raiders got down to business"). He wrote about this BFM.ru.

However, in the course of further proceedings, the claims of En + Recycling LLC were not satisfied: Deripaska's "swoop" on Trubnikov's business failed.

"Sneaking" Yevtushenkov

At the same time, a family-corporate, so to speak, conflict within the company itself developed. The heirs, including Trubnikov's ex-wife Irina, apparently tried to maximize their benefits from the situation.

While six months passed after the death of a businessman (necessary for the inheritance legislation to come into force), the heirs themselves, with the exception of Trubnikov's last wife Anastasia, filed lawsuits demanding that the decisions of extraordinary meetings of LLC participants through which Natura Siberica works be invalidated. And also to take interim measures in the form of a ban on amending the constituent documents and information contained in the ERGUL.

That is, apparently, even then it was expected that someone under the guise of the situation could put a hand on this business - including the participants in the inheritance process themselves. At the same time, it was believed that a significant part of the structure's management remains loyal to Irina Trubnikova and allegedly considers her the main heiress.

She was in no hurry to clearly part with the business. And then Vladimir Yevtushenkov appears, who, apparently, tried to work ahead of the curve, working with different groups of heirs. According to Forbes, initially he tried to agree on the purchase of shares from Irina Trubnikova, and then allegedly with Anastasia Trubnikova. Moreover, in the second case, the "call" was not directly, but first through Vladimir Tatarchuk's Proxima Capital Group, which then "gave its position to AFK Sistema."

If this is true, Vladimir Yevtushenkov could remind the vulture, which literally attacked the barely cooled prey - and from different sides. But then, obviously, it was not possible to agree. Did you have to "squeeze" the Trubnikovs for two years?

Apparently, the intransigence of Irina Trubnikova and the orientation of a significant part of the management towards her could become a reason for pressure from the inside - perhaps not without the suggestion of the owner of Sistema, who could promise the new president of the company, Sergei Buylov, a carefree future under his care.

Indeed, back in the summer of 2021 (after Yevtushenkov's initial negotiations allegedly failed) Buylov suddenly announced his intention to audit the entire structure, aimed at detecting corporate fraud. I.e. abuse by employees who could take advantage of the trust of the owners.

There could be tremendous pressure on Irina Trubnikov. Photo: https://www.pravilamag.ru/news/business-news/29-09-2021/292043-natura-siberica-uvolila-sovladelicu-kompanii-irinu-trubnikovu-za-proguly-i-nanesenie-vreda-biznesu/

Sergei Buylov was appointed president by Dmitry Ganzer, CEO of the company. Earlier, Ganzer was approved in office by the decision of the general meeting of owners of August 12, 2021. The first wife of Trubnikov, Irina, in turn, claimed that the Charter could have been violated, and the new leadership was allegedly not familiar to her at all. She wrote about it Lenta.ru.

There were a variety of rumors about this situation, which boiled down to two possible versions: either Irina Trubnikova herself and her hired managers could be unclean, or it was an attempt to squeeze her and people loyal to her out of the structure, persuade her to sell the asset and her inheritance rights for her ex-spouse. However, none of them was eventually confirmed - perhaps some of the information was protected from getting into the media. Yevtushenkov should be able to do so.

This "fuss" lasted almost two years, in parallel with the struggle of Trubnikov's relatives with each other. At the end of 2022, the situation was somewhat resolved: the court annulled the marriage of Anastasia (the last wife) Trubnikov, after which the children of the deceased businessman were able to inherit. They received about 20% each in the group's companies. The rest of the inheritance remained with Irina Trubnikova.

Now she, it turns out, sold the share to Sistema. Moreover, according to RBC, at the beginning of 2022, five Natura Siberica companies were headed by the former executive director of AFK Sistema Felix Lieb. I.e. in fact, this issue could be resolved even then.

System strategy

Vladimir Yevtushenkov and his "System" simply cannot but surprise. First of all, the question is - where does Yevtushenkov get the money? The fact is that at the end of the second quarter of 2022, the total debt of the group's companies amounted to over 1 trillion rubles. At the end of 2021, it was 871.9 billion rubles - i.e., it grew significantly.

For some reason, huge debts do not prevent him from constantly expanding his business empire and falling into a variety of scandals. Not so long ago, The Moscow Post described a strange situation with the Arkhyz mineral water company, Visma, whose former owner Valery Geryugov received almost five years in prison for withdrawing 1.5 billion rubles from the company and its deliberate bankruptcy.

But the case could be sewn with white threads. Under the guise of bankruptcy of the company, control over it passed to the ambiguous Vladislav Mayevsky. The latter has already "shone" in such a strange story, when it took possession of 80% of Megafon's shares, which are not known as those inherited by his company LV-Finance. But this, it seems, was only an intermediate point: the shares were transferred to Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group, and after these transactions the court declared illegal.

The fact is that after the appearance of Mayevsky in the capital of Arkhyz - Visma, AFK Sistema suddenly appeared from nowhere. It resembles a cunning "multi-move" with a raid of a possible raider capture.

At the same time, Yevtushenkov's large structures do not work sinlessly. In recent months, everyone has heard the situation with the mobile operator MTS, owned by Yevtushenkov. For example, at the end of 2022, the FAS gave the company "hands on" for an unreasonable increase in the cost of cellular services for almost 30 million subscribers. This was justified by rising costs, but antitrust regulators found that there was no real justification for a significant increase in tariffs.

Vladimir Yevtushenkov turned out to be a real master of multi-way operations. Photo: https://exp.idk.ru/news/russia/kak-devalvaciya-lui-drejfusy-i-tekhnologii-pomogli-milliarderu-evtushenkovu-stat-zemlevladelcem-№2-v-rf/489232/

There are a lot of such examples of "sins" of Yevtushenkov's business. One gets the impression that he simply cannot work honestly and openly with his hand. The search for circuitous ways, separate negotiations with business owners to buy out their shares, scandalous personalities in the holding's leadership (which is worth only one Ali Uzdenov) and the likely monopolization of industries. Apparently, this is the main business strategy of Vladimir Yevtushenkov.