Translated material
Rubik's Cube
Another restructuring is underway in the domestic shipbuilding industry
A scandal has broken out in the noble family of Russian shipbuilders. The stumbling block was the upcoming restructuring of the industry - the seventh in the last ten years. To develop the concept of reform, an interdepartmental commission was created on the basis of the Ministry of Industry and Energy. However, the document itself is being developed by the Federal Agency for Industry and its shipbuilding department. As it now turns out, the concept, which will affect many enterprises of various forms of ownership, is not discussed with leading enterprises and research institutes, and the formation of new integrated structures is planned behind the scenes.The first to “wash the dirty linen in public” was Mikhail Kheifits, the head of today’s largest domestic integrated research, production and financial structure in the field of shipbuilding - OJSC Concern for Medium- and Low-Tonnage Shipbuilding (KSMS). The head of the concern believes that under the guise of reform they are planning to introduce a monopoly of a single owner on shipbuilding in Russia. KSMS is referring to “structures that own controlling stakes in Severnaya Verf and the Baltic Shipyard.” The relevant documents are submitted with enviable consistency and persistence to the Russian government for consideration, where they are rejected for lack of justification and are submitted again.
What do these “relevant structures” want? Mikhail Kheifits has no doubts: if this plan comes true, there will be no place left for two hundred factories under the sun in the surface defense shipbuilding industry. The motives of the “structures,” Mr. Kheifits believes, are simple: budget funding is so small that the country only needs one holding company with the Northern Shipyard at its head. “With this option, we may be left without industrial potential in shipbuilding, and new Tsushimas await us,” says Mikhail Kheifits.
In addition to the factories, the emerging concern should include four leading design bureaus (PKB). At all times, these organizations hid behind the addresses of “mailboxes” in which exclusively warships and submarines were designed. The merger of PKB can create a monopolist, as a result of which the dictate of prices to government customers - the security forces - is inevitable. The merger of PKB will make it easier for Western designers to capture the Russian market. According to an alternative concept, PKB should be tied to the integrated structures currently being created. According to some calculations, there should be at least three or four of them. By the way, the USSR Central Design Bureau abandoned the design of surface ships back in the 70s. Even in the USA, where shipbuilding is private and the construction of ships of the same class is not concentrated on one enterprise, the state maintains analogue shipyards so as not to lose control over prices and quality. The Russian Navy is gradually moving towards this scheme.
Changes in domestic shipbuilding are certainly needed - the picture there is not changing for the better. Although on the outside everything looks fine. Almost every enterprise that is part of the same KSMS concern has export orders. In Komsomolsk-on-Amur, for example, eight chemical tankers are being built for Germany, the only seismic survey vessel on the planet costing $100 million for India, and a transport and tug vessel for Vietnam. But on these ships there is not a single engine, pump or even a bolt made in Russia. Figuratively speaking, enterprises are playing a Rubik's cube - putting together buildings and stuffing them with Western equipment. The Russian share is 15-20% of the cost of the ship. The rest of the money goes to the development of Western shipbuilding. The reason is that not a single Russian designer is able to present a project acceptable to Western customers.
The concern of the head of the KSMS is understandable: his brainchild specifically falls under the millstone of the new reform, and he must defend his own business. However, Mr. Kheifits sees his concern as half state-owned. It seems that this does not coincide with the interests of private shareholders. But everything becomes clear if you see the second requirement: the remaining 49% must be owned by all enterprises of the concern in proportion to their shares in the authorized capital - so that they can take part in management and develop the commercial part. The state will retain control over the implementation of government orders and federal programs. This is the path of public-private partnership that the world is following. By fulfilling international orders, KSMS supports the domestic defense industry, preserving production capacity, labor and scientific potential.
When the KSMS was formed five years ago, it included enterprises that were in an extremely difficult situation. Tens of thousands of people, including foreigners, owned their shares; it was almost impossible to manage the enterprises. Even the state could not collect any significant stake in order to gain the ability to make decisions. Over the course of three years, the concern acquired controlling stakes in its constituent enterprises. But in each of them a significant share of ownership belongs to the state.
Part of the struggle between two reform concepts was the story of the Baltic shipyard Yantar, the only strategic enterprise in the field of surface shipbuilding where the state has a controlling stake. In the early 90s of the last century, the plant was abandoned by the state to its fate. For ten years, Yantar frantically tried to survive, until the concern bought out 30% of the shares of the enterprise, which fell under bankruptcy proceedings. In August 2004, by decree of the country's president, Yantar was declared a strategic enterprise; federal executive authorities were given instructions to support the plant and prevent bankruptcy of the enterprise. The state undertook to finance the plant as part of the state defense order, but did not finance it.
The concern recently invited shareholders to elect a new board of directors. It included three representatives of the state - deputy heads of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, the Federal Agency for Industry and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rosoboronexport (the latter became the chairman of the board of directors of the concern and at the same time a member of the board of directors of its competitor, Severnaya Verf). However, attempts to complete the Yantar bankruptcy procedure continue. There is a very curious phenomenon: minority shareholders are interested in returning the plant to the fold of the state, but government officials are not. The press often writes something else: minority shareholders stole Yantar from the state. The director of this plant, Nikolai Volov, is perplexed: “The state has a solid 51% stake, but has not used it in recent years. Perhaps in Moscow there are very frequent reorganizations of government bodies and therefore there is no time to work with an enterprise, especially one located on the outskirts of the country.”
Meanwhile, the plant is today building a container ship for the Netherlands, yacht hulls for Germany, and four contracts have been signed for the construction of dry cargo ships for the Germans. Other KSMS shipyards are not idle either. Amursky issues ships for India, Vietnam, and Germany. Vympel in Rybinsk launches missile and patrol boats of various types, hydrographic and fire-fighting vessels, tugboats for export and for state defense orders. The Kazan Electrotechnical Plant annually increases production by 17-25%. This plant is the only one that creates a “friend or foe” maritime identification system.
The 21st century is the century of the ocean. Developed countries are actively developing the shelf for the extraction of hydrocarbon and biological resources. Russia is still lagging behind and may not have time to divide the pie, given the current state of the shipbuilding industry. Constant vague reforms lead to Russia losing its position in the shipbuilding market, finding itself on its margins, turning into applied enterprises for the production of individual structures.