One of the largest closed-end mutual funds will remain on the market due to its size

The management company "AG Capital" has canceled its decision to terminate the closed-end mutual investment fund (closed mutual investment fund) "AG Capital Interra" under its management. This is the first such case in the Russian collective investment market, but the Federal Service for Financial Markets (FSFM) met the fickle managers halfway, taking into account the size of the closed-end mutual investment fund: the value of its net assets (land plots and office buildings) is about 3 billion rubles. The closed mutual fund will be transferred to another management company, and the fate of AG Capital Management Company, whose license was revoked yesterday, will not affect its shareholders.

Among the reasons for the cancellation of the license of the AG Capital company, yesterday's message from the Federal Financial Markets Service indicated repeated violations of the requirements for the provision and disclosure of information, as well as violation of the requirements for providing the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring with information on transactions with funds or other property subject to mandatory control. “We carried out a scheduled inspection of the company, during which we identified numerous violations of the law. In addition, AG Capital did not comply with two of our instructions,” Vladimir Milovidov, head of the Federal Financial Markets Service, explained to Kommersant. The general director of the management company, Alexander Agibalov, yesterday refused to comment on the decision of the Federal Financial Markets Service, “as he has not yet received the documents.”

The shareholders of the AG Capital management company are Albert Gavrikov and Claver Holdings Group Ltd, registered in the Virgin Islands (according to Kommersant information, it also belongs to Mr. Gavrikov). CJSC AG Capital managed two closed-end mutual funds, and was also the founder of NPF Rus (the license was canceled in June, the corresponding order of the Federal Financial Markets Service was suspended by the court; see Kommersant of September 1).

First of all, AG Capital is known in the market due to the fact that it managed one of the largest closed-end mutual investment funds, AG Capital Interra. In June of this year, the company decided to terminate this fund (see Kommersant on June 7), but its shareholders opposed this and appealed to the Federal Financial Markets Service. Yesterday, a message appeared on the management company’s website about the cancellation of the decision to liquidate the fund, dated September 1. Yesterday Mr. Agibalov refused to explain what dictated this decision.

The assets of AG Capital Interra, listed on the website of the management company, include a land plot with an area of 58 hectares on Rublevo-Uspenskoye Highway (project of the Papushevo cottage village), a country residential complex "Malinovka" on Kievskoye Shosse with an area of 70 hectares, agricultural land with an area of 1388 hectares in the Krasnodar Territory, as well as a class A office building in the center of Moscow, which is currently rented by the National Depository Center NP and the MICEX Clearing House CJSC. Shareholders of AG Capital Interra are, in particular, Alliance ROSNO Asset Management, Globex Bank, Trinfico Property Management, and the Kazakh company Astana Finance.

The peak net asset value (NAV) of the AG Capital Interra fund occurred in January 2008, when it amounted to 8.4 billion rubles, and the cost of one share was 35.7 rubles. However, during the crisis, the NAV began to decline, and in December 2009, trading in AG Capital Interra shares was stopped due to their exclusion from the quotation list at the initiative of the management company. According to AG Capital Interra, at the time of the termination of the closed-end mutual fund, its NAV amounted to 2.98 billion rubles, and the value of the share was 12.65 rubles.

“Now the special depository North-Western Financial Company will work with the fund’s shareholders,” says Mr. Milovidov. According to him, at the end of September - beginning of October, the special depository will hold a meeting of the fund’s shareholders, at which a new management company will be selected. It will be the Veles Management company, three major shareholders of the fund told Kommersant. “More than 75% of shareholders are in favor of continuing the work of the fund, and all of them supported the option of choosing a new company,” a top manager of one of the management companies that owns shares of AG Capital Interra told Kommersant. General Director of Alliance ROSNO Asset Management Oleg Mazurov said: “So far we have agreed that everyone is happy with Veles Management.” He also noted that “legally nothing has been decided yet.”

Market participants call the development of events around one of the largest closed-end mutual funds unprecedented: until now, the management company has never reversed its decision to terminate the fund. “Such subtleties are not spelled out in the legislation, so we have not yet encountered similar situations,” says Roman Shemendyuk, general director of the Kapital PIF management company. “If the fund had to be terminated, the interests of shareholders would be infringed. Now is not the best time to sell off assets, and buyers would ask for serious discounts,” he notes.

Mr. Milovidov told Kommersant that the Federal Financial Markets Service decided to allow the company, as an exception, to cancel its own decision, taking into account “the size of the fund and the possible scale of losses that shareholders could suffer during its liquidation.” “Such situations should not be allowed in the future, and we will not welcome such measures,” Mr. Milovidov emphasized.

Alexander Mazunin

Shareholders of the first magnitude