The Alliance will not split
On the eve of his flight to Kyiv, the head of the Alliance, Ziya Bazhaev, sorted out the trash that had accumulated in his office. According to his colleagues, he carried out such a thorough cleaning only once - when his entire team was preparing to leave the SIDANCO oil company two years ago. Now Bazhaev has left Alliance forever. However, the company will not cease to exist.

OJSC "Alliance Group" was created in April 1998. Provides management services, external management of enterprises and implementation of anti-crisis programs. The group's shareholders include state property funds of 15 constituent entities of the Russian Federation, OJSC Kirov Plant and OJSC Izhmash. "Alliance" is involved in the implementation of the intergovernmental project of Ukraine and Kazakhstan to load capacity and reconstruct the Kherson Oil Refinery, in the anti-crisis management of the Tomsk Petrochemical Plant and the development of a program for the economic recovery of OJSC "Vostsibugol" and "Varyeganneft".

In March 1998, SIDANCO President Ziya Bazhaev and his team left the oil company to create their own company, Alliance Group. Then Bazhaev stated that his mission at SIDANCO was completed - under him, eleven of the oil company’s main enterprises were transferred under its external management, and SIDANCO’s market capitalization increased ninefold over the year. Therefore, Bazhaev decided to return to his own business (until 1995, he ran his own oil trading company, Lia Oil).
No one doubted that his new business would be successful. Even the head of ONEXIMbank (the largest shareholder of SIDANCO) Vladimir Potanin then said: “Bazhaev can walk independently, and his scale is greater than managerial work in one company.”
However, the largest projects of the Alliance - anti-crisis management of the Tomsk Petrochemical Complex and the project for the reconstruction of the Kherson Oil Refinery - began to be fully implemented only in the last six months. The company is confident that Alliance will continue to implement them, as well as work on other initiatives of Bazhaev. The first vice-president of the company, Sergei Chizhov, told Kommersant: “The group will continue to work. Even in memory of Ziya Bazhaev, we must complete the work he started.”
According to Alliance employees, the units that led regional projects were distinguished by great independence and made independent operational decisions. However, after the death of Bazhaev, these divisions will not “spread away” and will not be separated into separate companies. According to Chizhov, all strategic decisions are made directly in the Moscow office of the group and Alliance will make every effort to ensure that this practice is maintained in the future.
According to another vice-president of the group, Yegor Druzenko, “the company has enough talented people to eventually select a new leader of the Alliance from among them.” Now it is premature to talk about who will lead the company after Ziya Bazhaev. It is only known that the group intends to hold an extraordinary meeting of shareholders in the near future to decide who will become its new leader.

PETER Kommersant-SAPOZHNIKOV

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 40 dated March 10, 2000, p. 3

Authors:

Petr Sapozhnikov