A friend of the president's youth, Sergei Roldugin, could be the owner of the largest television advertising seller Vi and one of the beneficiaries of companies that owned stakes in KamAZ and AvtoVAZ, investigative journalists from ICIJ found out

Sergey Roldugin (Photo: Interpress/Petr Kovalev)

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ), in an article published on April 3, in particular, talks about the assets of the godfather of Vladimir Putin’s daughter, the famous cellist Sergei Roldugin. Journalists were able to access this information thanks to an " unprecedented leak of millions of documents" from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world's fourth largest offshore law firm. The 11.5 million documents were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and provided to ICIJ and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

Unlike other friends of Vladimir Putin, who were included in the Forbes list during his reign, nothing was known about the wealth of Sergei Roldugin until today, investigators note. His only known asset is a 3.2% stake in Rossiya Bank, where he is accompanied by Yuri Kovalchuk, Gennady Timchenko, Nikolai Shamalov, Alexey Mordashov and others. This bank came under US sanctions in 2014; the Barack Obama administration called it a “personal bank for a narrow circle” of people close to Putin. RBC previously estimated Roldugin's share in this bank at 550 million rubles.

Hundreds of millions of dollars passed through Roldugin’s companies, the investigation states: “Offshore companies associated with Sergei Roldugin controlled shares in the country’s largest enterprises in a variety of sectors of the economy - from the production of trucks to the sale of TV advertising.”

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From the analyzed documents it follows that Roldugin was one of the shareholders of the largest seller of television advertising in Russia, Video International (Vi), owning 20% of this company through offshore companies. The history of the issue is as follows: in 2010, when it was announced that 100% of Vi was bought by the structures of Rossiya Bank, Surgutneftegaz and the main shareholder of Severstal Alexey Mordashov , 12.5% of the seller was received by the Cyprus Med Media Network. This company is a 100 percent subsidiary of another offshore structure, International Media Overseas, the real beneficiary of which the authors of the investigation, citing materials from Mossack Fonseca, call Sergei Roldugin . Later, Med Media Network's share in Vi was increased to 20% (the amount and date of this transaction are unknown). It is unknown who sold Vi shares to an offshore company associated with Roldugin . In 2014, Med Media Network, when opening an account with Gazprombank, reported receiving about 270 million rubles. dividends. In 2015, the company transferred 20% of the seller to offshore Robertson Financial, whose beneficiaries have also not been identified.

From SPARK data it follows that the parent structure of Vi, CJSC Video International Group, in addition to Med Media, as of December 2015, owns Namiral Trading Ltd (20%), Dewar Investments Ltd (19%), LLC IC Abros (this structure, associated with Yuri Kovalchuk, in 2014 sold its 15 percent stake in Vi to Rossiya Bank for 384 million rubles), OJSC SOGAZ (15%), Attalion Investments Ltd (6%), Reibruk Ltd (4%), OJSC "Surgutneftegas" (1%). Vi's ownership structure was not officially disclosed after the change of shareholders in 2010. A source in the company explained to RBC that Vi has never been interested in the ultimate beneficiaries of offshore companies, believing that they somehow belong to the structures of Rossiya Bank. A source at Vi also said that Sergei Roldugin has never participated in the management of the company. Vi declined to comment officially.

The Video International agency was founded in 1987 with the participation of the future Russian Press Minister Mikhail Lesin. After the crisis of 1998, the company actually became a monopolist in the market for selling advertising time of the country's largest television channels and maintained this status until the end of 2009, when Lesin was fired from the post of adviser to the President of Russia, and the State Duma amended the law “On Advertising”, limiting the share of one seller 35% on the market (Vi had about 70%). The following year Vi changed owners. From the reporting of SOGAZ, associated with Rossiya Bank, it followed that all Vi could be valued at 5.77 billion rubles, or about $183 million. Despite the new restrictions, Vi remained a key player in the TV advertising sales market (with some channels it worked directly, and with some - as a consultant). In October 2013, Lesin returned to the media business - as chairman of the board of Gazprom-Media, and in the summer of 2014, the State Duma canceled the amendments on the 35% limit. At the same time, Lesin began to lobby for the project of creating a single seller based on Vi for the largest media holdings. However, his project was not implemented: in December 2014, Lesin left the post of head of Gazprom-Media, and on November 5, 2015, he died as a result of “blunt force head trauma” at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington.

Industrialist

Roldugin turned out to be one of the beneficiaries of companies that owned stakes in two of the largest Russian automobile plants - KamAZ and AvtoVAZ, according to the authors of the investigation. According to them, Ruben Vardanyan’s Troika Dialog could have acted in the interests of Roldugin, buying up shares of these two enterprises. Troika collected 54.4% of KamAZ in 2004–2008, buying shares from the government of Tatarstan (12%) and other minority shareholders. The transaction amounts were not disclosed. At the end of 2008, Troika sold 10% of KamAZ to the German Daimler for $250 million, and in 2010 - another 5% of the same Daimler and the EBRD.

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Troika owned at least 32.2% of the 54.4% shares of KamAZ through the Cypriot Avtoinvest Limited. According to KamAZ, Avtoinvest Limited remains a shareholder of the company with a share of 23.54%, and the largest shareholder is the Rostec state corporation (49.9%), which received its stake from the governments of Tatarstan and Russia. Troika itself was sold to Sberbank in March 2011, and Vardanyan became an adviser to the bank’s president, German Gref.

Until recently, it was believed that Avtoinvest owned shares in KamAZ in the interests of Vardanyan and other former Troika shareholders. But the authors of the investigation claim that back in 2007, Troika transferred all rights to manage Avtoinvest to the offshore Avto Holdings Ltd. In 2008, Sonnette Overseas, owned by Roldugin, acquired 15% of Avto Holdings for $1.5 million and entered into a shareholder agreement with its other co-owners, including Troika. Avto Holdings received the right to participate in meetings of Avtoinvest shareholders, appoint and dismiss directors and take 95% of dividends, the authors of the investigation write. Moreover, Avto Holdings had a ten-year option to purchase 100% of Avtoinvest for just $100 thousand, investigators say.

In 2008, Vardanyan told Kommersant that it was necessary to consolidate the controlling stake of KamAZ on Avtoinvest in order to make the plant’s share capital structure “more transparent.”

When Roldugin’s company became the beneficiary of Avtoinvest, the latter owned 23.54% of KamAZ. In just six years, KamAZ paid dividends only twice - in 2012 and 2013 for a total amount of 693 million rubles, Vedomosti writes. Avto Holdings was supposed to receive 155 million rubles, of which Roldugin’s company would have accounted for 23 million rubles.

The ultimate goal of the shareholder agreement was to obtain a controlling stake in KamAZ through Avtoinvest, Vedomosti writes. In this case, the shares would be distributed among the co-owners of Avtoinvest in proportion to their shares, the newspaper claims. But in the end, Avtoinvest failed to collect a controlling stake in KamAZ. And in 2014, this shareholder agreement was terminated, and the Belizean Robertson Financial (its shareholders were not disclosed) became the owner of Sonnette Overseas itself, the investigation says. Ruben Vardanyan did not answer RBC’s question on Sunday evening. The KamAZ press service declined to comment.

Investigators claim that there were similar agreements between Troika and offshore companies associated with Roldugin regarding AvtoVAZ shares. “Only the dates, company names, shares and amounts differed in these agreements,” the investigation says. Exactly what kind of stake in AvtoVAZ we are talking about and which offshore companies participated in these agreements is not specified.

Troika Dialog began buying AvtoVAZ shares in 2006, immediately after management of the plant was transferred to Rosoboronexport (later renamed Rostec). Troika bought securities of the enterprise and its subsidiaries from the market, but never announced the amount spent on it. In 2008, Troika sold the assembled blocking stake (25%) of AvtoVAZ to the French automaker Renault for $1 billion.

An AvtoVAZ representative did not respond to RBC's request.

Roldugin was a minority shareholder in the largest independent gas producer NOVATEK. He owned 0.003%, the company’s press service told Vedomosti, citing shareholder registers from 2012–2013. At that time, this package on the Moscow Exchange was worth about 33 million rubles. Since then, Roldugin has not been listed in the register of NOVATEK shareholders. On Sunday evening, a NOVATEK representative did not answer RBC’s clarifying questions.

Latifundist

In 2012, an offshore company associated with Roldugin became the owner of a large plot of land in the Priozersky district of the Leningrad region, the Igora ski resort is located on this site, the article says. Novaya Gazeta reported that Rossiya Bank and related structures invested in the construction of the project, and its cost was about $170 million. In 2006, Vladimir Putin came to the opening of this resort. At the end of last year , Reuters wrote that the wedding of the president’s daughter allegedly took place in this place in February 2013. “Igora” belongs to the family of Putin’s old friend, Yuri Kovalchuk, and a Cypriot offshore company, the beneficiaries of which are not disclosed, the agency noted then.

According to ICIJ, an offshore company associated with Roldugin provided about 50 million rubles on preferential terms. the Russian company Nord House, which since the beginning of 2010, as follows from the Unified State Register of Enterprises, has owned at least 5 land plots with a total area of 7 hectares on the shore of Lake Ladoga, previously owned by the Republic of Karelia. In 2013, “Nord House” changed its name, now it is called “Dacha Winter”. In addition to the land, the company owns a premium hotel complex of the same name in the Karelian city of Sortavala. Since 2011, information has appeared in the media, blogs and social networks that is being built another “Putin’s dacha”, the unofficial residence of the president, in these vicinities. The owners of Dacha Winter LLC, according to the SPARK database, are the first deputy chairman of the board of Rossiya Bank, Mikhail Klishin, and Rossiya Bank itself (80.1% and 19.9%, respectively). The land next door, as follows from the Unified State Register data, belongs to Yuri Valentinovich Kovalchuk, the full namesake of the owner of Rossiya Bank .

Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov told RBC that he would give all comments about the documents later. He mentioned Roldugin’s last name for the first time last week, announcing an “information hoax” against Putin.

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