AFK "System" will reduce a third of employees

AFK "System" will reduce about 30 percent of its employees in connection with difficulties with attracting funding and loss of Bashneft, Kommersant reports. According to the publication, now about 350 people work in the holding.

According to sources familiar with the situation, the loss of Bashneft forces the holding to optimize, "including the reduction of the labor collective and investment." The company began to experience difficulties in attracting financing back in the beginning of autumn - banks stopped issuing loans to AFK Systems, when it became known about the criminal case regarding the privatization of enterprises of the Bashkir FEC. The company itself also does not want to attract money "at such rates and in such a situation."

On October 30, the Moscow Arbitration Court satisfied the claim for the seizure of 81.67 percent of the Bashneft shares in favor of the state, which belonged to AFK Sistema. The court admitted that the enterprises of the Bashkir fuel and energy complex transferred from federal ownership to the ownership of the Republic of Bashkortostan illegally. As a result, the court recognized all further transactions related to the disposal of its shares. "Bashneft" should be returned to the state on December 8.

The main owner of the AFK System Vladimir Yevtushenkov has been under house arrest since September 16. Yevtushenkov is accused of organizing a scheme for the illegal sale of Bashneft System - according to investigators, in 2009 the shares of an oil company were purchased by Yevtushenkov for an amount, 500 million rubles below the contract price. Initially, Yevtushenkov was a witness in the criminal case of the former head of Bashneft of the Urals Rakhimov, who is accused of laundering money and embezzlement during the privatization of Bashneft and is now on an international wanted list.