Steering game

State managers are bad owners and managers. During the crisis, they become more and more

When Vladimir Putin and his entourage came to Togliatti to rescue AvtoVAZ this spring, Valentina Kazakova, the chef of the plant's top managers, prepared dinner for the retinue. She worked 20 hours a day, she recalls, Muscovites were satisfied. The prime minister then explained that the state would help AvtoVAZ, even though it was a private company. A few days later, Kazakov was fired: “It’s a shame: she worked for 27 years, and they didn’t even say thank you.” By the end of the year, another 36,000 people may be laid off. Valentina Ivanovna remembers very well how in Soviet times, when the VAZ was state-owned, no one was laid off. Now she, along with other workers, proposes to nationalize the huge factory.

“The role of the state [in the economy] during a crisis should increase,” Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov spoke in unison with Valentina Ivanovna last week. It is also rising and has already reached 45-50%, according to the calculations of Andrei Klepach, Deputy Minister of Economic Development. In developed countries, the public sector usually does not exceed 30% of the economy. Luzhkov proposes to carry out the nationalization further - in order to then sell this property "already at market prices."

This is a very popular idea. Nationalization is supported by the majority of the population. The state is returning to the economy, and the crisis has radically accelerated this process. But the result of this return may disappoint those who advocated it. From the state, people expect honest and effective management of national property in the interests of the whole society. And they get - nepotism, theft, withdrawal of assets, kickbacks and bribes.

DOG IN THE MANGER

Vladimir Putin was a little cunning when he said that AvtoVAZ, which is now dying, is private. Previously, AvtoVAZ was controlled by the SOK financial and industrial group. Then they were kicked out, and the plant became part of the state holding Rosoboronexport, which is now owned by Russian Technologies. The Renault concern wanted to buy a controlling stake - that would be a full-fledged privatization - but only a blocking stake was sold to it. The deal amounted to more than $ 1 billion, and under the terms of the agreement, Renault was to develop a whole family of new modern models for VAZ.

Now Renault's share in AvtoVAZ does not bring him any income. AvtoVAZ lies in ruins. But about a year ago, the plant bought licenses for technologies from Renault for €220 million. The plant does not need these licenses yet and is unlikely to need them soon, since the company does not have the funds to invest in new projects, says Vladimir Bespalov, an analyst at VTB Capital. Today it's just a bunch of papers. Another off-the-record analyst gives an even tougher assessment: Renault bought a 25% stake in AvtoVAZ, and the €220 million that Renault returned is a kind of gratitude from the plant's managers.

Would a private company that calculates risks buy such licenses? AvtoVAZ did not gain anything from the deal with Renault. It didn't work with the new models. The Lada RF90 car - a joint project with Renault - was planned to be produced at the site of the IzhAvto plant. However, AvtoVAZ did not agree with the SOK company on its purchase. Today IzhAvto is bankrupt. For almost four years, the plant has not put a single new model on the conveyor. This means that the plant has no prospects. The 25 billion rubles of assistance received from the state was not used to invest in new models, but to pay off debts - primarily to suppliers.

AvtoVAZ suppliers are a separate issue. In May, the Prosecutor General's Office conducted an inspection at the plant. It turned out that out of 553 suppliers, 299 are intermediaries. As a rule, in a large business, the work of intermediary structures is controlled by a purchasing manager. The scheme is simple: an intermediary takes a product (part, spare part) from a supplier at one price, and sells it to the plant at a premium. Very often, such an intermediary is a stack of constituent documents in the safe of the manager of the buying company. Here is an excerpt from the prosecutor's report on AvtoVAZ, which came into the possession of Newsweek: "... These companies are included in the chain manufacturer - end consumer to increase the cost of products."

It's one thing - expensive and opaque purchases. Others are official salaries and travel allowances. In 2008, the plant spent 2.5 billion rubles to maintain the central office - 24 vice presidents and 320 managers. That's over $20,000 per month on average. The leaders of General Motors, Ford, Chrysler stopped using corporate jets during the crisis. They arrived by car from Detroit to the congressional hearings on state support. In December 2008, AvtoVAZ President Boris Aleshin flew 32 million rubles on special flights.

The plant distributed apartments to managers for next to nothing. From the report of the prosecutors: one of the three-room apartments was sold to a citizen Erofeeva T.V. for 280,001 rubles. On the free market, such an apartment would cost 9-10 times more. Eight such apartments were sold.

But AvtoVAZ has big problems with sales, dealers are crying. It's not even about the price-quality ratio, it somehow suits consumers. But when buying, for example, Renault, you can choose the desired model and equipment, and Lada will have to be taken from those that the factory sent to the dealer for sale. The sales plan for each outlet in Togliatti is drawn up, as in the USSR, without taking into account the opinion of comrades from the field.

When there was a consumer boom, this system worked - people bought everything. Now only Lada Priora is selling relatively well, and it is in short supply. No one needs cars of the Samara family, but AvtoVAZ imposes them on dealers. Dealers stop cooperating with AvtoVAZ and switch to foreign cars. Favort-Motors, one of the largest Moscow dealers, has already done this. The restructuring of this system began only about two weeks ago - after Boris Aleshin resigned.

Olga Lisova, 25, worked as an economist at a food factory. In early July, she received a notice of dismissal. Today, she is protected by an independent trade union, but the plant is threatening to be fired through the courts. Olga is worried not so much about her salary - 3,500 rubles after the introduction of a shortened working week - but because of the free kindergarten that her two children go to. The paid one costs about 10,000 rubles a month, and the family did not have that kind of money even in better times. It is being reduced because the plant is liquidating its own public catering and transferring these functions to a third-party company. The Prosecutor General's Office claims that the cost of food for employees will increase by 65 million rubles a year.

HARD LANDING

The state came into the auto industry to ensure investments in the renewal of the model range. In air transport - at first for a more acute need: the planes stopped carrying passengers.

In August 2008, due to high prices for jet fuel, the private airlines of the AirUnion alliance went bankrupt. Planes did not fly, people spent the night at airports. Neither KrasAir, the parent company of the alliance, nor its affiliated companies could help many passengers. Just for such situations, state corporations were created - to replace business where it lacks motivation or competence. Passengers were transported: the charter company of the Moscow government Atlant-Soyuz acted as a contractor, the fuel was given on credit, guarantees were provided by the state corporation Rostekhnologii.

A few months later, on the basis of the AirUnion alliance, regional air carriers transferred to Russian Technologies, and Atlant-Soyuz, the Rosavia company was created. The plans were ambitious: to become the first company in Russia, and by 2012 to overtake Aeroflot twice in terms of the number of passengers carried. A year has passed since then, and the airline has not even been established.

Rosavia, as it turned out, broke down at the stage of transporting passengers of the drowned AirUnion. Rostekhnologii could not - or did not want to - pay off its partner in the future alliance, Atlant-Soyuz, and delayed the payment of 3.5 billion rubles. Because of the hole in the balance sheet, the business went downhill, especially since the charter market began to decline. This summer, Rostekhnologii officially declared the inexpediency of repaying the debt to Atlant-Soyuz: the company, even having received the debt, will no longer be able to function normally.

Rostekhnologii refused to talk on this topic: “We cannot comment on something that does not exist.” The state failed to manage these assets. The two state-owned companies could not agree among themselves. Rostec did not transfer money to Atlant-Soyuz, seeking to reduce its stake in Rosavia and increase its own. The Moscow government did not agree to this.

As a result, Atlant-Soyuz is getting worse and worse, and Rostec has not yet got a competent manager capable of managing disparate aviation assets, says businessman Yevgeny Ostrovsky, a former major jet fuel dealer. There were such people in Atlant-Soyuz. As a result, problems began with the second pillar of Rosavia - STC Rossiya: the profitability of this company is -30%, it has huge debts to fuel suppliers. The situation is developing according to the scenario in which AirUnion moved. The circle is closed.

MUTUAL INTERESTS

On March 25 last year, the national luge championship was supposed to begin on the luge and bobsleigh track in Paramonovo near Moscow, and the athletes became nervous when its opening was postponed from February 23 to March 10 - "for good reason." The good reason was that in February, President Vladimir Putin was busy, and in March, newly elected President Dmitry Medvedev found time. “This was the main thing for the governor of the Moscow Region Boris Gromov and the regional government - construction is underway, the ribbons are being cut,” said Standard & Poor's analyst Felix Eigel.

When Dmitry Medvedev rejoiced at the opening of a new complex, the bankruptcy of the Moscow region was already just around the corner. The former donor region today makes ends meet only thanks to help from the center - the region received about 10 billion rubles in subsidies from the federal budget.

$46 million was invested in the sleigh complex in Paramonovo. The prospects for payback are questionable. And there are a lot of such objects in the region. Financing these construction projects for Governor Gromov was organized by his Finance Minister Alexei Kuznetsov, who once worked at Inkombank. Under him, the regional administration switched to the following scheme: it borrowed "short money" and invested it in projects with long payback periods.

Several subsidiaries were established: the Moscow Regional Investment Trust Company (MOITK), the Mortgage Corporation of the Moscow Region (IKMO) and the Moscow Regional Mortgage Agency (MOIA). At first, these companies took loans and invested them in projects like Paramonovo. Then they began to place bonds. The indispensable co-organizer of the issue of these papers was RIGroup, owned by Kuznetsov's wife Zhanna Bulakh. The region, on the other hand, received political benefits: it showed the Kremlin that it was building and solving social problems.

This scheme, probably, could be implemented even in a crisis - to pay for loans from budget funds. But the company itself took up the construction business and began to attract loans on favorable terms: IKMO and MOIA provided guarantees for loans taken by RIGroup. This fall, due to the liquidity crisis, RIGroup, along with other builders across the country, found itself in a difficult situation. It became impossible to pay, the banks came to the guarantors - IKMO and MOIA - and they declared default, pulling the regional budget along with them. As a result, Aleksey Kuznetsov is wanted, and the state, represented by the region, has clearly failed to manage its investment companies.

CONTINUOUS PROJECT

The former chief architect of the reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater Nikita Shangin has been hosting journalists at his home since the beginning of the week: “There is no time to drink tea!” complains the architect. He has been working on the renovation project since 2004. In 2007, Shangin recalls, the customer, the Directorate for the Reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater, unexpectedly demanded a radical change in the project: they abandoned the idea of ​​restoring the destroyed colonnade. Although the colonnade, an architectural monument, was destroyed only under guarantees of restoration, Shangin recalls: “Otherwise, everyone will go to trial.”

Shangin suspects that the customer, designer, builders and the theater itself entered into an agreement. He himself left, "slamming the door." The architect simply failed, explain in the "Kurortproekt", the organization responsible for the preparation of the project of the Bolshoi Theatre. The Prosecutor General's Office, however, still believes that Kurortproekt itself failed.

Last week, the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case on the fact of embezzlement: for the development of the Kurortproekt project, it received 1 billion rubles from the Directorate for Reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater, despite the fact that the contract, as established by the Accounts Chamber, indicated an amount six times less. “The project was constantly being finalized,” they explain in Kurortproekt.

It is not clear why the revision cost such a large amount. “Besides me, another architect and five students worked on the project, and I received 100,000 rubles,” recalls Shangin. His group could earn a billion rubles if it worked for about 100 years. Shangin suggests "just go and see what kind of cars and country houses the people who run the reconstruction have."

“Of course, the state is an inefficient owner,” admits Veniamin Simonov, director of the Department for Strategic Control of Resource Support at the Accounts Chamber. - There is no planning and control. For example, I have never heard of anyone being imprisoned for inefficient use of funds.” He believes that the state itself poorly controls the property it owns and the work of its managers. That is why these managers, representing the state, turn into bad owners.

Elizaveta Maetnaya participated in the preparation of the article