Gentlemen of distribution

State corporations are like ghosts: no one has seen them yet, but everyone knows that they exist, and soon there will be many more of them. Some people even see them. Businessman Arkady, who works with Power Machines, shares either fear or secret hope: “Our [Severstal Group owner Alexei] Mordashov will soon be bent over, and he will turn the private company Power Machines into a state corporation of the same name. I’m telling you exactly, don’t go to a fortune teller.”

In six months, 6 state corporations have appeared. The first was Vnesheconombank, which had long been accustomed to being experimented with with various organizational forms. The experience was recognized as successful - given the ease with which it is possible to organize a new state corporation. Then Olimpstroy was born in a row (for organizing the Olympics in Sochi), Rosnanotech (for the development of nanotechnologies) and the Housing and Utilities Assistance Fund. After a pause - "Russian Technologies" on the basis of "Rosoboronexport" and "Rosatom".

Corporations are very different: some essentially resemble the Soviet branch ministry, others - an international company. But all of them have in common a unique organizational and legal form. They are non-profit organizations, but each is created by a special law. And the state gives each corporation free of charge either funds for the authorized capital or property.

What distinguishes them from private companies is that they do not pursue profits, but, on the other hand, they cannot be subjected to bankruptcy. The law on each of the state corporations states that bankruptcy laws do not apply to them, and the Civil Code does not provide for the bankruptcy of such non-profit organizations. And nowhere is it written what to do with the state corporation if it does not fulfill its financial obligations. It is only clear that she is not threatened with the sale of property.

The difference from ordinary budgetary institutions is even more serious. As a government official said on condition of anonymity: “The money is from the budget, but I spend it like my own. Well, it's very, very handy." After all, non-profit organizations are not subject to the complex reporting rules of the Budget Code.

“It is difficult to understand such a form with the mind,” says Igor Nikolaev, Director of the FBK Strategic Analysis Department. “The absurdity is that the corporation is the owner, but it is not the owner who appoints the manager.” “Who doesn't like the situation when you can get billions of dollars worth of property, you have every right to dispose of it, and there is practically no control over it. Very comfortable, ”Nikolaev ironically.

So comfortable that even the country's leadership - the president and his successor - shyly call such an organizational form, which implies the creation of some kind of parallel economy with its own government, "temporary." “State corporations appear, but they can disappear in one day. Like snow, - Evgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog Investment Company, agrees with them. “The state has a lot of money - there will be a lot of state corporations, a little - they will disappear.” So far, there is a lot of money, as well as those who want to receive it for free and comfortable use.

IN OTHER FORMS

Until recently, there was only one state corporation. The form itself appeared back in 1999, when the Agency for the Restructuring of Credit Organizations (ARCO) was created to save troubled banks. Andrey Melnikov, Deputy General Director of the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA), stood at the origins of the creation of ARCO. “At that time, we just broke our heads with the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Russia,” he says. “Not a single form was suitable: OJSC should make a profit, and not protect investors, and the state unitary enterprises (SUEs) have too low a speed of making fundamental decisions, this was simply fatal for us.”

Then they came up with a new form of non-profit organization. Everything is strictly according to the Civil Code: there is a record that non-profit organizations can be created "in other forms provided for by law." ARCO became the first of the "others", and after heated discussions it was named a state corporation.

ARCO no longer exists - it was disbanded as unnecessary - and only this year officials remembered a convenient form that suits any state needs, especially if you need to manage huge sums without unnecessary red tape.

VEB of the USSR received its powers from President Boris Yeltsin in 1993. It was the only one to retain the abbreviation "USSR" in its name. This meant that VEB was paying the Union's debts. No one could say what VEB was: a bank, an agency, or something else.

But the debt problem was solved with oil money. And VEB faced a choice: either become an ordinary bank, or change something in your life. VEB Deputy Chairman Sergei Vasiliev says that they considered various options: privatization is too complicated and time consuming, and a state unitary enterprise is an absurd form for a bank, since SUEs cannot borrow on the international market. And then they remembered the experience of ARCO. Further political will, a special law and money from the budget (250 billion rubles) - and the new state corporation Development Bank is ready.

Moreover, VEB did not even have to sacrifice its benefits. According to the law "On the Development Bank", it will still not pay income tax and create reserves in the Central Bank. VEB retained all its previous functions: managing external debts and pension money, supporting exports, etc. New ones were added - lending and supporting infrastructure, innovation, small and medium-sized businesses and the environment. “That's the whole idea: we're not chasing profits. We are a bank that supports the sectors of the economy that are priority for the state,” Deputy Chairman Vasilyev is proud.

"It is very interesting. Not as boring as in a regular bank. People who are used to solving non-standard tasks work here, Vasiliev explains. “The methods of work are commercial, and the tasks are state”. True, Vasiliev could not answer the question of Newsweek, who are the employees of VEB - officials or businessmen. “A state corporation is such a hybrid,” he argues. “We must and will become more and more bankers.”

TRANSFER TO BALANCE

Then the authorities decided that long-standing state problems could be solved by commercial methods. It immediately became clear what to do with the Olympic construction site and the city of Sochi as a resort in the Krasnodar Territory. The Minister of Economic Development and Trade German Gref has been engaged in the development of Sochi for several years, but the result was, alas, not so hot. The minister occasionally came to Sochi, ran around construction sites and resented the negligence of officials. Then they quickly wrote a law on Olympstroy, which was given 186 billion rubles. to the authorized capital.

The housing and communal problem was also turned into a form of a state corporation - this is how the Housing Reform and Assistance Fund appeared, which received 240 billion rubles. from the budget. Closed the top three leaders of "Rosnanotech", to which the state gave 130 billion rubles. for a nanotechnology breakthrough.

Laws on all state corporations were written in the presidential administration, and their heads were selected there. “In order to create a development state, I had to tinker with the search for candidates,” a source in the presidential administration tells the story of the creation of Newsweek. And indeed, corporations were headed by unexpected personalities: oilman Semyon Vainshtok was thrown to the Olympic construction site, senator Konstantin Tsitsin to the housing and communal services, and financier Leonid Melamed, who knows nothing about such subtle matters, was sent to nanotechnology. Rostislav Murzagulov from the Housing and Public Utilities Fund compared himself to a soldier in the army: he was called up - he had to complete the task.

The new mission of these people slightly puzzled. Until now, not everyone (like, for example, Weinstock) has premises or (like Melamed) work programs. Weinstock is recruiting people and seating them in the areas that were built by him during the leadership of Transneft.

Positional battles are going on in the Nanotechnology Council. “Everything is just kirdyk! [Director of the Kurchatov Institute Mikhail] Kovalchuk considers himself in charge and believes that he is the informal head of this state corporation, and Melamed, of course, does not like this, and he resists. They fight not for life, but for death! - tells Newsweek source in the government apparatus, who attended the latest meeting of the Nanotechnology Council. The money has already come to the state corporation, but it is not clear what to do with it.

Sergei Chemezov has long wanted to turn his FSUE Rosoboronexport, an exporter of Russian weapons, and more recently the owner of industrial assets, into a state corporation. But they didn't let him. The case was hampered simultaneously by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and Minister German Gref. Both believed that the form of a state corporation was not suitable for Rosoboronexport, that it could well be corporatized and become an ordinary JSC with 100% state control. But there was no confrontation. Putin fired Fradkov, and Gref did not want to work in the new cabinet of ministers. And Chemezov's project was immediately implemented.

At the end of September, Putin personally introduced a draft law on the new state corporation Rostekhnologii. It passed all the readings in the Duma, in the Federation Council and was signed by the president in 24 days. “I just whistled through the Duma and the Federation Council,” recalls a Newsweek source in the presidential administration. - Chemezov should be pleased. In vain he was worried that there would be difficulties under the new president. Putin does not forget his own.”

Rostekhnologii is proud that they did not ask for money from the budget. "The state corporation will function on the basis of self-financing on the break-even principle," the company issued a press release. On the other hand, all the property of Rosoboronexport, including AvtoVAZ and the titanium giant VSMPO-Avisma, was transferred to the balance sheet. The Chemezov state corporation does not reveal its book value, but it is obvious that this property is worth much more than all the other state corporations received together. “And now we may not learn a lot about state corporations,” says Sergei Guriev, head of the New Economic School. “After all, they are not even required to publish their accounts.”

Sergei Kiriyenko followed in the footsteps of Chemezov: his Federal Atomic Energy Agency was transformed into a state corporation. And, like Chemezov, he went all the way very quickly. “At the speed of a default,” his former government colleague chuckles at Kiriyenko.

There were many obstacles on the way to the creation of a nuclear corporation. It is necessary to change the budget legislation - that means we will change it; to correct the Civil and Criminal codes - we correct; the law on state secrets is not a problem. “Can you imagine changing 20 basic laws in order to adopt one law on one economic structure! Just unbelieveble!" - Nikolaev from FBK is surprised.

The case was completed in December, Putin received Kiriyenko and appointed him the head of Rosatom. “Thank you for your trust,” exhaled the former prime minister quietly. “The uniqueness of our state corporation lies in the fact that, in fact, it restores the entire complex that was once called Minsredmash, that is, it completely integrates the management of the nuclear weapons complex and nuclear energy,” Tatyana Elfimova, deputy head of Rosatom, rejoices.

In Rosatom, as well as in Rostekhnologii, they did not open their book value. “The nuclear center in Sarov alone costs $40–50 billion,” Sergei Novikov from Rosatom began to count. “It’s impossible to say how much Atomenergoprom, together with the military unit, costs.” It turns out that Gazprom and Rosneft are much more transparent and efficient than state corporations, Guriev from the New Economic School says: “At least they have shareholders and they publish reports.”

NOT ONLY FOR EXPORT

President Vladimir Putin and successor Dmitry Medvedev insist that state corporations are a temporary necessity. “We are not going to keep these state corporations forever,” Putin said, “and create state capitalism.”

The presidential administration has already placed an ideological base under this indefinite "temporality". They say that state corporations are "new centers of development", necessary only because private business lacks an innovative component: innovations do not promise sufficient returns to cover all risks. “The development state is a really working model,” notes Boris Makarenko, deputy general director of the Center for Political Technologies. “But the researchers, both Francis Fukuyama and Michael McFaul, directly point out that it is obtained only where the Confucian value system works and officials devoted to its ideals live.”

Moreover, Japan, Taiwan, Korea and China built their development centers, focusing only on foreign markets. And Russia, says Makarenko, went according to its own scenario: it combines an orientation towards export and import substitution. Nobody has done this before us. “Recently, I spoke with a Chinese economist, and he asked me if we were sure that the products of state corporations would be bought abroad,” says Makarenko. “After all, if you flood the domestic market with the products of state corporations, you will only get monopolies that hinder the development of a market economy.”

Newsweek asked all state corporations that exist today one question: when will they fulfill their mission of "development centers" and cease to exist. Only one corporation, the Housing and Communal Services Fund, admitted that they would be able to launch market mechanisms in the industry before 2011.

The rest believe that their life is eternal. "Olympstroy" is going to operate the 220 facilities built for the Olympics after 2012, says the vice-president of this corporation, Sergei Grigoriev. And Rosatom, Russian Technologies and Rosnanotech preferred the official wording: the law does not specify the duration of the corporation.

Removing a state corporation costs nothing - it's as easy as creating it - you just need to write a new law. “You just need to understand: when the state corporation is disbanded, the state will have nothing left. The money invested will be used, and the former state property will most likely be corporatized,” notes Nikolaev from FBK.

Therefore, it is especially interesting what other areas will be given into the hands of new strong business executives. “I heard that they want to create a state corporation in the construction industry,” says United Russia Martin Shakkum, who headed the industrial committee in the last Duma. Minister of Communications Leonid Reiman decides which form of transformation of FSUE Russian Post should be chosen. “The state corporation is an interesting idea, it opens up new opportunities,” he says. The government is discussing the state forest corporation. And the Ministry of Economic Development, which until now had a negative attitude towards the multiplication of state corporations, proposes to create its own - to attract investment and improve the image of Russia.