Translated material
The owners of the plots near the “Putin Palace” were connected with the buyer of TransContainer
The “Palace for Putin” is gradually acquiring names other than those named in the FBK investigation, Alexei Navalny. Open Media found links between Kompleks LLC (according to FBK, it owns a palace near Gelendzhik) with the companies of Sergei Shishkarev, who bought TransContainer in 2019.
According to the publication, Shishkarev's companies bought three plots on the territory belonging to the palace from companies that, according to FBK, are controlled by Gennady Timchenko and Vladimir Kolbin. One of them, with an area of 157 acres, was transferred to LLC Dubrava by a businessman in 2020 to LLC Complex.
Other small plots near the village of Praskoveevka were purchased to organize entrances to the reception house of the Delo Group of Companies Shishkarev, we found out the PO from sources close to the company. “The Dela shareholders have not shown and are not showing any interest in the wine industry,” they have no plans for Kompleks LLC, a group representative said.
What you need to know about the "Complex"
- According to Rosreestr, since 2013, 67 hectares of the land of the “palace” have been owned by Complex LLC, a subsidiary of Binom JSC, and since 2015, the palace itself has been registered with the Complex. Before that, it was probably considered an object under construction and was not registered.
- From 2013, when Complex became the owner of the site, and until 2017, the company was registered on the offshore Savoyan Investments LTD in the British Virgin Islands. Then, until the end of 2019, it was generally a draw (it belonged to itself), then Binom JSC became the owner.
- Since Binom is a JSC, the names of its owners have not been disclosed. But the personal mail of Binom CEO Natalya Tikhomirova is registered on the llcinvest.ru domain. The domain is owned by the Standard company, registered at the same address as Igora Drive and other assets of Yury Kovalchuk, shareholder of Rossiya Bank. This domain was used for email when registering the Shellest yacht in the maritime registry, which was also attributed to Putin and his entourage.
- In 2019, Binom, the parent company for Complex, gave her a loan of 2.5 billion rubles. At the same time, Complex's non-current assets increased by a comparable amount - probably, the company bought some more real estate or land. Prior to this, non-current assets increased by 8 billion rubles in 2016, which should also indicate a large purchase.
- In the accounting records of Complex there are no signs that the actual beneficiary of the company has changed. A 99% share passes from the Virginia offshore to equity in 2016–2017, in the reporting it is estimated at 3.5 billion rubles (the column “own shares bought back from shareholders”). This is a formal net asset value calculation that is applied when a shareholder simply withdraws from equity. There are also no signs of payment of real money for a share in the reporting: what is happening looks like the share was simply transferred from offshore to the company's capital, where it hung like a draw until it passed to Binom.
- For 2015–2019, Complex, judging by the accounting records, received at least 25–30 billion rubles. Since 2015, 6 billion rubles have been received in the form of revenue, and its source is unclear. Since the company specializes in real estate management, if it deals only with the palace, it can only earn money by renting it out. More than 18 billion rubles were received as loans and payables (including the mentioned 2.5 billion rubles from Binom). Presumably, about 4 billion rubles were received in 2016-2017.
- Loans to "Complex" are given by non-random companies. This is indicated by the fact that in 2017 part of the accounts payable was converted into a loan. Such operations, as a rule, are non-market and are typical, for example, for family offices.
What you need to know about Sergey Shishkarev
Sergey Shishkarev, president of the Delo logistics group of companies, is among the top 200 richest people in Russia according to Forbes with a fortune of $ 700 million. In 2019, his company unexpectedly outperformed Alexander Abramov and Roman Abramovich's Yenisei Capital and Vladimir's First Freight Company (PGK) Lisin at an auction for a controlling stake in TransContainer, owned by Russian Railways.
The purchase of control in the country's largest railway operator Delom for 60 billion rubles, which was financed by Sberbank, seemed like a de facto privatization. But soon 30% of Del was bought by the state corporation Rosatom in order to develop the Northern Sea Route.
In politics, Shishkarev is known as a co-founder in the early 2000s of the first Motherland party (merged into A Just Russia), but later moved to United Russia. He was a deputy of three State Duma compositions in a row (until 2011), from 2015 to 2018 he worked in the Maritime Board under the government.