Translated material
Dancer for Rosneft
Photo: Administration of the President of the Russian FederationDancer for Rosneft
Who got the stake in Italian tire giant Pirelli purchased for the state oil company and what does choreography have to do with it?
In 2014, state-controlled Rosneft bought a stake in the Italian tire giant Pirelli. It was not only an economic but also a political event. The cooperation agreement with Pirelli was ceremoniously signed at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in the presence of Vladimir Putin. And despite American and European sanctions against Russia, Rosneft top managers, including its CEO Igor Sechin, briefly joined the board of directors of Pirelli, one of the most famous European companies.
Rosneft acquired 13% of Pirelli for almost 553 million euros "using pension funds and financial institutions," its website said . The report was cited by leading news agencies and business media.
But, as Important Stories found out, the deal was not the most transparent.
Pirelli shares were bought for Rosneft. But in the end they ended up in the hands of people close to its management. Moreover, strange characters far removed from big business were involved in the purchase scheme. For example, a dance teacher from Moscow and a former employee of the enterprise of the Presidential Property Management Department of Russia.
Important Stories learned some details of this deal thanks to the disclosure of the beneficiaries of Luxembourg companies. The French newspaper Le Monde received all the documents of the Luxembourg business registry and shared them with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the British newspaper The Guardian and other media. Important Stories became the project’s partner in Russia.
Not just dancing
The buyer of 13% of Pirelli was Long Term Investments Luxembourg, a company registered in Luxembourg eight days before the deal. Russian news agencies reported that this company belonged to Rosneft. Pirelli itself wrote in its report that the company was controlled by Rosneft's pension fund. But, judging by the data of the Luxembourg business register, everything was not so obvious.
Long Term Investments Luxembourg was created by the company "Long Term Investments", registered in January 2014 in Moscow. At that time, "Long Term Investments", in turn, belonged to a resident of the capital, Aya Belova . At the time of the purchase of Pirelli shares, she was not yet 28 years old; you will not find her name in the lists of top managers of Rosneft or in the Forbes list. "Important Stories" managed to find Belova's name only onthe website of the Moscow dance school Street Jazz. "Since the age of 4, she has been doing rhythmic gymnastics, and now her main activity with us is a dance school for children. Aya gets along well with young dancers and with her professionalism sets an example of what can be achieved if you try and remain true to your goal," the school's website says about Belova.
The fact that the young dance teacher turned out to be the founder of Long-Term Investments could be suspected of being a registry error. Formally, Belova was the owner of the Moscow firm that in 2014 turned out to be the final owner of a stake in Pirelli worth more than half a billion euros. We reached Belova by phone to clarify whether there was a misunderstanding. She asked to call back and stopped answering. Belova did not respond to written and voice messages sent to her mobile phone.
We managed to contact the former director of Long-Term Investments, Alexey Yashin. When we asked how the children's choreographer became the owner of the company, Yashin replied: "No comment, I can't say anything."
So what connection could a dance teacher have with one of Russia's high-profile international deals?
Dad's connections and sausage from Sechin
"Important Stories" found out that Aya Belova could have ended up in the company "Long-term Investments" for a reason. Her father Sergey Belov was a business partner of people from the "Region" group, close to the management of "Rosneft". Former director of "Long-term Investments" Alexey Yashin also used to work in "Region". "Region" manages the pension money of "Rosneft" and is one of the five largest management companies in Russia.
Aya's father, Sergei Belov, had business dealings with Sergei Sudarikov, the owner of Region, as well as former employees of this group, Valery Mikhailov and Pavel Vashchenko.
In 2011–2016 In the years they owned or managed at least three firms: Investment Consulting, Bejart Investments Company and Profitinvest.
Valery Mikhailov's name was mentioned in one of the most high-profile cases in Russian history - the bribe to former Minister of Economic Development Alexey Ulyukayev. Forbes magazine and RBC called Valery Mikhailov an acquaintance of FSB General Oleg Feoktistov. The general headed the security service of Rosneft, and before that he was the first deputy head of the Internal Security Directorate (ISD) of the FSB.
A man named Valery Mikhailov lent General Feoktistov $2 million in cash, which Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin handed to Alexey Ulyukayev in 2016 along with a basket of homemade sausage. The minister was then arrested by the FSB on suspicion of accepting a bribe and subsequently sentenced to eight years in a maximum-security penal colony. Sechin himself wrote a statement to the FSB director that Alexey Ulyukayev had demanded a bribe.
After the bundles of dollars ceased to be material evidence in the criminal case of bribery, General Feoktistov personally appealed to the Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow to have the money returned to him. As reported by the BBC Russian Service, Feoktistov explained in court that "the money is not his, but that of a private investor, whose details he will not disclose." And in the testimony of the general during the investigation, it was directly stated that this "private investor" was his acquaintance Valery Mikhailov. And that Mikhailov is connected with Rosneft.
Support those who tell about strange deals of state companiesYour donation will allow us to find out who else is making money on their proximity to the stateSupport "Important Stories"Since 2014, Mikhailov has owned "one of the most mysterious players in the real estate market" — the company Riverstretch. It is known, in particular, for receiving valuable assets from entrepreneurs who suddenly began to have financial or legal problems. And eventually, some of these assets were transferred to Rosneft structures.
The second co-owner of the Riverstretch company is Pavel Vaschenko. He also crossed paths with the dance teacher's father, Sergei Belov, in business.
Pavel Vaschenko and Sergey Belov met in 2015–2016 at the company Profitinvest.
Vaschenko is no stranger to Rosneft. He worked in the Region group and "quickly made a career, having met someone from Rosneft's top management. Even after leaving the group, he allegedly remained an informal mediator between Region and the oil company and periodically participated in transactions in the interests of both companies," Forbes wrote about Vaschenko, citing a former Region employee.
Vaschenko, Belov and Mikhailov did not answer questions from Important Stories.
Manager from Kazan
In 2015, instead of dance teacher Aiya Belova, the founder of Long-Term Investments was replaced by the Management Company Regionfinansresurs. However, this did not add transparency to the Pirelli shareholding scheme, because the owner of Regionfinansresurs, according to the documents, was Natalia Bogdanova, who had never managed large assets before.
Bogdanova used to live in a residential area of Kazan, in a nine-story panel house on Yamasheva Avenue. She did not hold high positions, and in the past worked as a back office manager at a local investment company that went bankrupt in 2009. And yet, Pirelli’s 2015 shareholder agreement stated that Bogdanova is the “sole shareholder and sole decision maker” in the management company Regionfinansresurs.
Important Stories found out that at least since the mid-2000s, Bogdanova had worked in the structures of the same Region group, close to the management of Rosneft. In addition, Regionfinansresurs had the same phone number and CEO as Region Trust, which used to manage Rosneft's pension funds and since 2004 belonged to Rosneft's financial director Petr Lazarev. The Vedomosti newspaper called Lazarev one of Igor Sechin's close associates who enjoy his unconditional trust. After purchasing Pirelli shares, Lazarev joined the board of directors of the Italian company together with Sechin.
The net profit of Long-Term Investments, which Regionfinansresurs managed, exceeded 2.5 billion rubles in 2015. It is difficult to say who received these funds: the companies do not disclose this information. Regionfinansresurs itself did not respond to the request of Important Stories and did not explain in whose interests the company owned a share in Pirelli and whether these people were connected with the management of Rosneft. But the traces of Regionfinansresurs lead to the same Vashchenko and Mikhailov.
Regionfinansresurs is also associated with Valery Mikhailov and Pavel Vaschenko. In 2015, Sergey Pilyaev, the former director and minority co-owner of the company that owns Mikhailov and Vaschenko's Riverstretch, worked there as an auditor. Pilyaev and Vladimir Galkin, CEO of Regionfinansresurs Management Company, at different times headed the company (Zaryainvest), which became Vaschenko's family business.
For Rosneft and that guy
In 2017, Long-Term Investments changed its owner again. According to the Pirelli report , the beneficiary was Sergey Sudarikov. He is the main owner of the Region group and a person who is not an outsider to the management of Rosneft.
In 2011, Region began to manage billions of rubles of Rosneft's pension fund on its own after RN-Trust (later renamed Region Trust) joined the group. RN-Trust used to belong to Rosneft's financial director Lazarev. Three sources close to Region and Rosneft told Vedomosti that Lazarev might have had an interest in the Region group. But Rosneft and Region itself categorically denied this.
After Sudarikov became the beneficiary of Long-Term Investments, the company’s net profit in 2017 exceeded three billion rubles.
Sudarikov did not answer questions from Important Stories.
Investor from the Property Management Department
By 2020, the Luxembourg company Long Term Investments Luxembourg (by that time it had already changed its name to Tacticum Investments), which acquired a stake in Pirelli, had again changed its beneficiary. According to the Luxembourg business register, it was Arkady Mutavchi.
As Important Stories found out, until 2008 Mutavchi worked as deputy director of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Enterprise for the Supply of Products of the Presidential Property Management Department of Russia”. Then he went to work for the small Perm holding company “Kungur”, which produces drilling rigs.
Subscribe to our newsletterBe the first to know about new international investigationsAnd in 2015, Mutavchi acquired the Trigrad management company with assets worth more than two billion rubles from Sergei Sudarikov's structure. Neither Mutavchi nor the Trigrad management company explained what money Mutavchi was able to use to buy this company.
By 2019, Mutavchi had become a major investor and partner of Sudarikov and the Region Group: together they acquired the Pharmacy Chain 36.6, the fourth largest in Russia (Mutavchi managed to sell his stake). How did a former employee of the presidential property management enterprise become a major investor in a relatively short period of time, and by 2020 received Pirelli shares, and are there people associated with Rosneft behind him? Mutavchi did not answer questions sent through his relatives.
Luxembourg's Tacticum is linked to Moscow's Tacticum Capital. They had the same director, Vadim Chumakov from Nefteyugansk. And Moscow's Tacticum was wholly owned by Logos, a long-time partner of Rosneft in a Moscow development project worth half a billion dollars (RN-Vlakra). Logos, in turn, again leads to Vashchenko and the dance teacher's father, Belov. The final owner of Logos was listed as the CEO of their company.
Close banker
A report by Luxembourg-based Tacticum, whose sole beneficiary was Mutavchi, said that a loan to Moscow Credit Bank (MCB) was due in 2020. The bank had issued a €400 million loan to the Luxembourg company in 2017, when it was owned by Sudarikov. MCB is also no stranger to Rosneft.
When Rosneft was looking for banks to attract foreign currency financing after the European and American sanctions of 2014, its choice fell on MKB, as Forbes reported . And the following year, in 2015, a major investor came to MKB - the Region Group, which is close to the oil company. It now holds 6% of the bank.
At the beginning of 2021, MKB owner Roman Avdeev became the new beneficiary of Luxembourg-based Tacticum, which owns shares in Pirelli.
The Luxembourg company's share in Pirelli has gradually declined: from 13% in 2014 to 6% in 2020. And by December 2020, to 1.87%.
Rosneft and the Region Group did not respond to Important Stories’ questions about whether the group managed the chain of companies that bought Pirelli’s stake for Rosneft, how much it earned on this, and why there were people behind these companies who were somehow connected to Rosneft’s management.
A businessman from the Russian Forbes list, on condition of anonymity, told Important Stories that complex and non-transparent ownership schemes for large foreign assets may be linked to the sanctions regime. Ownership schemes are becoming more complex under the pretext of concealing business and ultimate owners from "enemies." And in such a situation, any abuse is possible, since it is becoming increasingly difficult to see the real beneficiaries and those who earn money by providing them with various services.
Rosneft's history of deals has already seen obscure firms buying significant assets for it. In 2004, Yukos owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky was charged in a criminal case and was sent to prison for a long time. He named Rosneft CEO Sechin as one of the initiators of his prosecution. Then, Yukos's parent company was bought at an auction organized by the authorities by an unknown firm, Baikalfinansgroup, registered at a bar in Tver. And after that, Rosneft got everything.
It is curious that the “Long-Term Investments” founded by the dance teacher (as well as the aforementioned “Regionfinansresurs”, Riverstretch and the “Region” structures) also received YUKOS assets. After Rosneft took the lion’s share of Khodorkovsky’s empire, they got office buildings and a YUKOS development project in Moscow.
By 2018, Long-Term Investments had acquired the former YUKOS asset , YUM Estate, a business center on Bolshoy Palashevsky Lane in Moscow. Since 2015, Rosneft had been renting premises there, paying more than 160 million rubles in rent. Region structures and Valery Mikhailov's Prominvest Plus received the former YUKOS asset, Topmaster Realty, from 2016 to 2020, with the right to develop the territory on Dubininskaya Street, opposite Paveletsky Station. The company went to the Region group and Mikhailov's structures from the infamous Prana company. It bought up YUKOS assets, after which they were transferred to Rosneft. After Prana, Rosneft became a "bona fide purchaser." And it would be difficult to make legal claims against Prana. It was liquidated long ago, and it is still unclear who was behind it. In 2014-2017 , Regionfinansresurs, and then Region's structures, became the main owners of the former YUKOS asset, Siberian Internet Company (Sibinkо). Now Sibinok is Rosneft's largest IT contractor (Sibinkо's revenue in 2019 exceeded 50 billion rubles). In 2019, Sibinok was transferred to Rosneft. Regionfinansresurs Management Company controlled Sibinok through the Businessconcept company, whose CEO was Pavel Vaschenko (the main owner of Riverstretch).
Read more about the #OpenLux project , as well as about the secret overseas real estate of top managers of Russian Railways and Gazprom .
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