Gazprom Neft wants to invest in housing

Building bussiness

As Kommersant has learned, Gazprom Neft (formerly Sibneft) is going to invest more than 1.5 billion rubles this year. to residential and commercial real estate in St. Petersburg. She will receive this money from the city authorities as subsidies for the construction of Gazprom City, but will not have time to use it for its intended purpose. High-ranking officials of the St. Petersburg administration did not agree on whether Gazprom Neft has the right to misuse budget money.

Subventions from the city authorities are provided for in the agreement on the construction of the Gazprom City office center with a total area of over 1 million square meters. meters, including a 300-meter skyscraper. According to the agreement, St. Petersburg will finance the construction at its own expense; 60 billion rubles will be allocated for the project over ten years (from 2007, 6 billion rubles per year) in the form of subventions from the city budget, while the gas concern will become the owner of the complex.

As Gazprom Neft representative Alexey Serditov told Kommersant, 2 billion rubles are planned for this year in the St. Petersburg budget. It is not possible to fully develop it under Gazprom City. “To ensure that the funds do not disappear and cannot be transferred to next year’s budget, we have already expressed to the city authorities our interest in commercial, residential and other construction and have met with understanding. The proceeds will then be directed to the main facility - Gazprom City,” Kommersant was told at Gazprom Neft. St. Petersburg authorities have confirmed that Gazprom Neft is interested in the city real estate market. According to the Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg Alexander Vakhmistrov, the head of the city’s construction complex, for now we are talking about the implementation of a large block development project. Mr. Vakhmistrov did not disclose the parameters of this project.

To implement these plans, it will be necessary to overcome the resistance of another vice-governor, Mikhail Oseevsky, who oversees the city’s economy and finances. He considers Gazprom Neft's proposal illegitimate. “We are ready to allocate money so that the headquarters of Gazprom Neft will be located in St. Petersburg; these funds will not be used for any other purposes,” Mr. Oseevsky told Kommersant. “The main principle of budget legislation is the targeted use of funds.”

Builders interviewed by Kommersant are not afraid of Gazprom and its structures entering the residential real estate market. “$50 million is not such a big amount for the real estate market. Now the average investment in quarterly development is $100 million,” a top manager of one of the construction companies told Kommersant.

Analysts believe that investment in residential construction is now quite effective. According to the managing partner of IB Group, Yuri Borisov, in this case the company can count on a profitability of 25-30%. According to Roman Urevich, head of the marketing research department at London Consulting & Management Company, it is advisable for Gazprom Neft to assemble a portfolio of assets from land plots, residential real estate in the elite segment and class A warehouse terminals.

PAVEL NIKIFOROV, MARIA SHEVCHENKO, St. Petersburg

Quarter instead of "City"