January 31, 2011, 03:01 / Interviews and profiles

How Gazprom managers are connected to its suppliers

Suppliers of the Russian gas monopoly are connected not only with Vladimir Putin’s acquaintances, but also with its top managers Roman Shleinov

The gas concern pays its suppliers good money: Gazprom Komplektatsiya only for “material and technical resources” in 2008–2010. spent 666 billion rubles. This is the centralized supplier of the concern; more than 80% of all purchases of equipment and materials go through it. And more and more often, suppliers are chosen through a competition: in 2005, there were 22% of such contracts, and in 2009 - more than 88%, says Gazprom representative Sergei Kupriyanov. “Gazprom is constantly improving the system of organizing and conducting procurement for the company’s needs, giving preference to competitive methods,” he emphasizes.

You can get an idea of Interstiltech from the materials of the Moscow Arbitration Court, where in October 2010 he sued the tax authorities. The company's assets consisted of seven computers, two printers, a photocopier and several telephones. And the business is that she was an intermediary in the supply of large-diameter pipes from manufacturers (in particular, TMK ) to the Northern European Pipe Project controlled by the Rotenbergs (supplier to Gazprom). The purchased pipes were sent directly to the consignee; the company was not involved in warehousing. And the goods shipped by suppliers to the company immediately became the property of buyers.

Beginnings of Tatyana Golubeva. Forestry and skating rink

In 2007, the Tauride Garden skating rink was built in St. Petersburg. With Gazprom's money. Governor Valentina Matvienko and chairman of the board of the monopoly Alexey Miller came to the grand opening. The skating rink was handed over to the management of the Talion company, which is engaged in the hotel, restaurant and club business, and also invests in projects for the reconstruction of buildings in the center of St. Petersburg. The Talion group is controlled by businessmen Yakov Barsky and Alexander Ebralidze, partners of Tatyana Golubeva in the timber holding company Modern Wood Processing Technologies (all have 25% each). Arkady Rotenberg has also been on the board of directors of Talion since June 2010. Valery Golubev told Vedomosti that “in order to put into operation the children’s skating rink built by Gazprom, the participation of a professional management company was required, and Talion was chosen.” The determining factor in the choice was the competence of this company, and not any other reasons.” And that Talion “has already refused to renew the contract to operate the skating rink due to low profitability.”

Earth

In 2009, Tatyana Golubeva filed a petition with the St. Petersburg department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) asking for permission to purchase shares of Nevsky Plant OJSC. The OJSC owns a plot of 25 hectares; another company has long been engaged in production (ZAO Nevsky Zavod, which became part of REPH). A representative of the St. Petersburg department of the FAS said that Golubeva’s request to acquire a 28% stake was satisfied. According to Sergei Fedorov, executive director of Praktis SV, the land of the Nevsky Plant is worth approximately $12.5 million.

There is money

730.7. billion rubles Gazprom spent on industrial construction in 2010 (company data)

Independent son

Golko’s son’s partner in Unicom LLC is Grigory Igorevich Nak, a relative of the head of Yamaltransstroy, Igor Nak. “Yamaltransstroy” is the general contractor of “Gazprom” for the construction and operation of the railway to the Yamal Peninsula, traffic opened in January 2010. “Unicom LLC is an independent business project of my son,” Golko told Vedomosti. – This company is an insurance broker in the Tyumen region, its activities are in no way connected with Gazprom. The choice of the Yamaltransstroy company as the general contractor for the construction of the railway to the Yamal Peninsula, in fact, has no alternative; it is the only company with the necessary competence for the construction of railways beyond the Arctic Circle.”

Top managers of Gazprom

Gazprom"

energy holding. The main owner is the state (more than 50%). Capitalization (MICEX) – 4.73 trillion rubles. Financial indicators (IFRS, first half of 2010): Revenue – 1.72 trillion rubles, Profit – 508.23 billion rubles. Production (2010, preliminary data) – 508.6 billion cubic meters. m of gas.

Contractor Manasir:

“If you think that a certain company can win any tender, this is not so. The company must have capacity, history, and the human factor must be taken into account.” Vedomosti, November 2009

But it is difficult for an outsider to win these competitions. “Everything is decided by the approach to the managers who oversee the desired direction,” says one of Gazprom’s suppliers. He is skeptical about open competitions: “Outsiders don’t work with the Gazprom system. If there are no connections, then there are almost no chances, and it’s better not to even dream about some areas of business with Gazprom.”

The most comfortable niches have long been occupied by non-random people. For example, the concern is supplied with pipes by St. Petersburg acquaintances of Vladimir Putin - Arkady and Boris Rotenberg and partners of Putin's student friend Viktor Khmarin. In 2005–2010 The Rotenberg and Khmarin firms won 45 out of 48 Gazprom Komplektatsiya tenders for the supply of pipes and connecting parts. Two-thirds of the tenders for the construction and reconstruction of Gazprom's technological facilities last year were won by Arkady Rotenberg's Stroygazmontazh and Ziyad Manasir's Stroygazconsulting. 10% of Stroygazconsulting previously belonged to the daughter of Putin’s youth friend Alexander Grigoriev.

As Vedomosti found out, companies associated with Gazprom’s top managers also do not neglect such an attractive business. Vedomosti compared the results of competitive bidding for the monopoly (available on the Gazprom website) and data on the partners of Gazprom’s largest suppliers (in some cases available on their websites) with data on companies registered with the participation of members of the concern’s board and their immediate relatives ( available in SPARK and Unified State Register of Legal Entities). Interesting coincidences were found among three members of the Gazprom board out of 17: Alexander Ananenkov, Valery Golubev and Yaroslav Golko.

Builder Golko

Yaroslav Golko is a professional builder. Since the mid-1980s, he worked in various construction companies in St. Petersburg (Spetstonnelstroy, Styx). In 2003, he joined Gazprom, by that time he headed the pipe procurement subsidiary of Gazkomplektimpex - Gaztaged, which appeared shortly after the team of the current chairman of the board of the concern, Alexey Miller, joined Gazprom. He could have gotten this position thanks to his acquaintance with the Rotenbergs, says a businessman familiar with Golko. 25% of Gaztaged belonged to Boris Rotenberg’s company Baza-torg. It is not known what was more useful to Golko - his experience in construction or his acquaintance with the Rotenbergs, but in a few years he made a rapid career: he headed the investment and construction department of Gazprom and became a member of the board of the monopoly.

Vedomosti discovered a connection between Golko companies and three suppliers of Gazprom and its subsidiaries - Sfera LLC, Roselektroprom Holding CJSC (REPH) and Interregional Logistics Company LLC (MLK).

From September 2007 to November 2010, Tula-based Sfera won five major tenders of Gazprom and its subsidiaries as a general contractor for the construction and technical re-equipment of gas pipelines. And when in 2007–2008. Gazprom sold two of its non-core assets at auction, 88% of the Gazstroydetal company, which produces pipeline connecting parts, and 100% of the gas equipment supplier Tsentrgazservice, which ultimately went to Sfera. In 2009, Sphere's revenue amounted to 5 billion rubles. (SPARK data).

“Sphere” is no stranger to Golco companies. 30% of Sfera belongs to the St. Petersburg company Eda, whose general director Marina Saltykova is also the general director of another St. Petersburg company, Arsia. The sole owner of “Arsia” is Golko’s daughter, Anna. 20% of Sfera belongs to Marina Shalova, who is the general director of the St. Petersburg company Amitek, owned by Yaroslav and Anna Golko.

It is curious that the Moscow branch of Sfera is located at the same address as the Golko Stroyengineering company. The company, as stated in SPARK, is engaged in monetary intermediation, provision of loans and investments in securities. The Solnechny health complex in the Tula region, owned by Sphere, indicates the same mobile phone number in SPARK as Stroyengineering.

By the way, another 25% of Sfera is owned by Finance LLC, which is controlled by Mikhail Borshchev, former general director and member of the board of directors of Gazprom’s construction subsidiary Tsentrgaz (Golko is also on the board).

REPH supplies Gazprom with electrical and power equipment. In 2009, the concern entered into a contract with REPH for the supply of gas pumping units for 14.97 billion rubles. That year, REPH's revenue amounted to 3.7 billion rubles.

The companies that are shareholders of REPH are led by general directors “friendly” to the Golko family: Shalova heads the Vekbi company, which has 18% of the holding, and Saltykova heads the Dex company, which has 49%. In the past, Shalova, together with Golko, owned 38.3% of the shares of the Electropult plant, which later became part of REPH.

MLK, registered in Dmitrov on Chekistskaya Street, also shared the same general director with the Golko company - Tatyana Fon-Fokt (and a common telephone number). Until 2010, Sfera was the 100% owner of MLK. On the Gazprom website, MLK could not be found among the suppliers. But when last year the tax inspectorate suspended operations on MLK’s accounts, the company went to the courts, where it turned out that it “is an organization that ensures the construction of gasification facilities of Gazprom OJSC and Yamalgazinvest CJSC in the domestic market, and also participates in an international project “Bovanenkovo – Ukhta gas pipeline system” (accounts were unfrozen).

Golko told Vedomosti that Stroyengineering is not connected with Sfera, “they do not conduct joint activities” and neither Golko himself nor his relatives “have anything to do” with REPH. And the packages of Gazstroydetal and Tsentrgazservis were “sold at open auction” for 185.3 million rubles, which is 3.4 million rubles. more than the price agreed with Gazprom. “I have no information about the acquisition of these assets by persons affiliated with Gazprom,” Golko concludes.

Saltykova’s deputy at Eda, who is responsible for Sfera, confirmed that Sfera owns two former Gazprom assets, but they “haven’t heard of Golko’s name there.” The general director of Stroyengineering, Tatyana Von-Fokt, said that before giving answers to Vedomosti, she would consult with the general director of “our Sfera group of companies,” but she never responded to the request.

Philanthropist Ananenkov

Deputy Chairman of the Board of Gazprom Alexander Ananenkov has been in the gas industry for more than 40 years, but his finest hour came in November 2001, when Putin and the entire energy elite visited Novy Urengoy. Shortly before this, Gazprom solemnly launched the first new gas field in 10 years - Zapolyarnoye. Ananenkov at that moment was the general director of Gazprom’s mining subsidiary, Yamburggazdobycha (now Gazprom Dobycha Yamburg), which was developing Zapolyarnoye. Ananenkov managed to please Putin so much that he advised Miller to take a closer look at the lively gas worker. Soon Ananenkov received the position of deputy chairman of the board of Gazprom and turned out to be the only one from Rem Vyakhirev’s old Gazprom team who managed to make a career under Miller.

Ananenkov founded the non-profit Fund for Social and Economic Support of Northern Veterans back in 2001, and in 2005 he headed the board of trustees of this fund. The current president and co-founder of the fund, Alexander Sinelnikov, is a former business partner of Ananenkov’s son Sergei.

Among the winners of Gazprom competitions, Vedomosti found six companies associated with the veterans support fund or its creators. The Fund owns MO Gazcenter LLC, MO Gazcenter CJSC, and until 2010, Yamburgtransservice LLC. Two more companies are registered at the same address as the fund - Businessgroup LLC and Spoilex LLC. Spoilex, owned by Sinelnikov, and MO Gazcenter are the founders of another monopoly supplier, Energoservice LLC.

According to SPARK, the revenue of these six firms in 2007–2009 amounted to 2.46 billion rubles. They won at least 73 competitions and supplied Gazprom and its subsidiaries (including Ananenkov’s native Gazprom Dobycha Yamburg) with a variety of goods: from gas turbine power plants and pumping equipment to sports equipment and tableware.

For example, Energoservice won tenders for the supply of medical equipment for the Gazprom mountain tourism center, and Yamburgtransservice won tenders for “transportation of goods from Moscow, the Moscow region to St. Petersburg”, “storage and delivery of goods from Moscow”. Moscow, regions of Russia to the customer’s warehouses in Yamburg, Novozapolyarny, Novy Urengoy.”

"Spoilex" in 2009–2010 won 20 Gazprom Dobycha Yamburg competitions. The company mainly supplied kitchen equipment, fire-fighting, laboratory and technological equipment, sports equipment and all kinds of “inventory assets”.

Two MO Gascenters in 2005–2009. won 50 Gazprom competitions. They supplied Gazprom Dobycha Yamburg with batteries and bearings, audio-video and photographic equipment, gas turbine power plants, equipment for canteens and a culinary store, chairs and sports equipment; and Gazprom Transgaz Tomsk - units and valves, harvesting equipment, garden tools and spare parts for ships.

Businessgroup won three tenders last year - for the supply of deep anode grounding conductors, “capacities” for Gazprom Transgaz Tomsk and Nexans cable for the Urengoy branch of Gazprom Energo LLC.

Ananenkov told Vedomosti how the fund came into being. In the late 1980s–1990s, “a large number of unemployed people appeared in the Far North, who had nowhere to go, since there was no housing on the mainland, while all personal savings in Sberbank were virtually devalued. At that time, the managers of enterprises that remained afloat received many letters asking for help. That’s why there was a proposal to create a support fund.” According to him, “over the past few years alone, financial assistance has been provided to more than 70 veterans for a total amount of about 5 million rubles.”

The Fund, Ananenkov explains, “has the right to create companies with the aim of using their profits to fulfill its statutory tasks. This is precisely why the MO Gascenter companies were established. These companies participate on a general basis in competitions held <...> by various legal entities, including Gazprom <...> The management of Gazprom has neither the right nor the opportunity to interfere in the work of [competition] commissions or influence their decisions."

According to him, “MO Gascenter companies actually participated in more than 100 announced competitions and were winners in only eight, while the total volume of supplies for these competitions is one tenth of one percent of the total volume of purchases of the centralized supplier.”

“All other named companies have nothing to do with the fund,” Ananenkov insists. – The Foundation rents premises for its office in a business center, at the address of which other companies are registered, about whose activities I know absolutely nothing <...> But I know for sure that I and my family members do not have any personal business and do not participate in joint business with anyone, including A.V. Sinelnikov.”

“With regard to conflicts of interest and affiliation, I can disappoint you and say that, in accordance with Darwin’s theory, we all descended from monkeys and in this sense we are relatives, which means we are all affiliated,” Ananenkov sums up.

Trubnik Golubeva

The wife of the deputy chairman of the board of Gazprom, Valery Golubev, Tatyana, has a rare specialty - “physics teacher in French.” Since the mid-1980s, Golubeva worked as a physics teacher and was the head teacher of school No. 2 in the Vasileostrovsky district of St. Petersburg. “She was a strong teacher,” the then school director Galina Ivanova recalls about Golubeva. – Demanding, exacting, nevertheless she could always meet halfway. The students loved her because she was somewhat impressive; she always looked very good.”

And Valery Golubev, Ivanova continues, “helped the entire public education and there were many such cases when only he could resolve issues.” One day, somewhere in the early 1990s, when the school was giving out salaries to teachers, bandits came and took the money. “Money was then given out at school, right in the office. And then they came with weapons. Before that, these young people were very nice. And they took all the money from the cashier. You know, we thought it was just a masquerade,” says Ivanova. Then Golubev, being the head of the Vasileostrovsky district, found funds and the teachers were paid salaries, and the bandits were found literally on the third day in some restaurant, the former director concludes.

In 1992, Golubeva headed the education department of the Vasileostrovsky district, and in 2000, the education committee of the St. Petersburg administration. At the end of November 2003, she left her post to follow her husband to Moscow, who became the general director of Gazkomplektimpex (as the centralized supplier of Gazprom was then called).

Ivanova believes that, based on her qualities, Golubeva “could become a person leading some kind of company.” In Moscow, Golubeva co-founded a company selling pipes. In SPARK and the Unified State Register of Legal Entities as of 2010, the owner of 50% of the company Interstiltech is listed, the remaining 50% is owned in half by Golko’s relatives - Svetlana and Anna. Before them, 99.9% of Interstiltech belonged to Liechtenstein Velcon Anstalt.

For example, in October 2007, Interstiltech sold 7,000 tons of pipes from the trading house of the Pipe Metallurgical Company and more than 1,000 tons from the Izhora Pipe Plant (Severstal), the total sales amount was almost 422 million rubles. The pipes were transferred to the Moscow Pipe Procurement Plant for processing to apply an anti-corrosion coating and were delivered to the customer in processed form. All this information is in the court decision.

Interstiltech also bought pipes from ChelPipe, according to the reports of this group. ChTPZ reports indicate that in 2008–2009. Interstiltech purchased from 1.6 to 6.4% of all products of the metallurgical group.

Revenue of Interstiltech in 2007–2009 – 12.4 billion rubles, and net profit – 1.95 billion rubles. (SPARK data).

Golubev answered Vedomosti succinctly: Interstiltech did not supply anything to Gazprom and has no relation to Gazprom.”

Golko said approximately the same thing: “My relatives were related to Interstiltech, but they were engaged in this business on their own; this company did not participate in Gazprom’s competitions and did not make any supplies to Gazprom. There is no conflict of interest in connection with its interaction with the Northern European Pipe Project, since the procurement was carried out openly, on a competitive basis.” True, he also added that thanks to the competitive procedure, Gazprom purchases pipes at prices not higher, but lower than market prices: “For example, in 2010, the price of a pipe with a diameter of 1220 mm used for the construction by Gazprom of the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk- Vladivostok, amounted to more than 56,500 rubles/t on the market. Before “bargaining,” the appetites of potential suppliers varied between 55,000–57,000 rubles/t. After “bargaining” during the competition for the purchase of this pipe by Gazprom, the price dropped to 52,800 rubles/t.”

There is no conflict

“In a Western company, if an internal audit had revealed similar connections, this would have led to investigations and possible dismissals,” says Elena Panfilova, director of the Transparency International center in Russia. “But in Russia the legislation is not so developed and Gazprom’s top managers are not in danger.”

“In any corporation, procurement is a fertile ground for fraud, but procurement cannot be viewed only from these positions,” argues Finexpertiza CEO Agvan Mikaelyan. – Regulation in this area is imperfect: for example, on normal grounds a company that has no operational experience can win, but sets dumping prices, and then either breaks the contract or supplies something obscene. Sometimes buying from your own people, who can provide quality service, is more reliable than buying from strangers.”