Is Belay leaking the Volgotanker to Sechin?

Rosneft, with the help of controversial businessman Oleg Belaya, may "get its hands on" the assets of the bankrupt Volgotanker.

A Sberbank subsidiary has withdrawn from Prime Shipping Holding, a joint venture with Rosneft that handles maritime cargo transportation. Our correspondent has learned that the company may be operating using the assets of Volgotanker, a company that went bankrupt in 2008. The story of its "reclassification" involves the illegal resale of ships and the name of Oleg Bely, a longtime subject of our publication’s investigations.

Volgotanker OJSC was the largest shipping company in central Russia. Founded in 1992 in Samara, the company was controlled by Yukos. By 2018, the main shareholders were the Federal Property Management Agency and Oleg Bely’s Trinfiko CJSC.

Back in 2008, the company was declared bankrupt following a lawsuit filed by the Federal Tax Service, and its assets were sold off. Several court cases were filed against the firm "Consultservice" for 11 million rubles. By 2018, a new bankruptcy trustee had noticed these transactions and had them declared invalid, as the assets were sold at an undervalued price and, apparently, to a company affiliated with the debtor.

After purchasing the ships, Consultservice leased them to a subsidiary of Volgotanker, a company called SK BashVolgotanker. Consultservice later sold six of the existing vessels to Rechstandart, which also leased them to BashVolgotanker.

"Consultservice" is affiliated with "Rechstandart", since Alexey Smolin was the director of both.

Photo: Rusprofile

"The dishonesty of the scheme is obvious. The idea is simple: sell a valuable asset to a controlled company for a minimal amount of money and continue to use it, while creditors patiently wait in line in the bankruptcy process. The buyer is undoubtedly a front man, acting in concert with the manager in the interests of those who previously controlled the debtor,"  Dmitry Kletochkin , a partner at the law firm Rustam Kurmaev & Partners, commented on the manipulations uncovered at the time .

We attempted to determine who might be behind the two entities that owned the Volgotanker vessels. Nina Arsenyeva was among the owners of Rechstandart. She also owned Rosmortrans Shipping Company LLC. From 2015 to 2017, this company was registered to British offshore companies, the beneficiaries of which are unknown. During the same period, Ilan Management Company was Rosmortrans’s management company. One of its then beneficiaries, Dmitry Dostanko, also owned a stake in Trans Marine Trading LLC and Nizhegorodsky Port Trading House. The latter was 99% controlled by MIR Management Company. Stanislav Vitalyevich Tuchkov has been the company’s founder since 2016.

Both Dostanko and Tuchkov were involved in matters related to maritime assets. Tuchkov owed money to Gazbank, which is currently bankrupting him. This financial institution was controlled by Vladimir Evgenievich Avetisyan. Gazbank itself is currently in bankruptcy proceedings. And Avetisyan is first in line among creditors. He is a former top manager at Rusnano, which Anatoly Chubais abandoned with a huge financial hole when he fled abroad. The businessman subsequently worked at Rostec.

By giving money to Tuchkov, Avetisyan may have been interested in maritime assets. It’s possible that Avetisyan, on behalf of Rechstandart, helped the Volgotanker businessmen implement their plan.

It should also be noted that companies involved in maritime shipping are widely known for their schemes for illegal VAT refunds (at least  Marine Trading was caught using it  ). Is it possible that this method of profiteering was also practiced by companies associated with Rosmortrans? Then Avetisyan’s interest in these assets is understandable.

Earlier,  there were reports online  of Avetisyan’s possible arrest at the airport. The businessman himself denied this. But if the arrest did indeed occur, could it be connected to the deals between Rechstandart and Konsaltservis and the transfer of tankers and ships to a subsidiary of Volgotanker?

Update with old firmware

As a result, the transactions were contested, and the assets were to be returned to Volgotanker for further sale, this time to someone other than the "front men." In 2020, the company  put the assets up for auction . However, the auction was declared void due to a lack of  investor bids .

In 2018, a new legal entity, JSC Volgotanker, was registered in Moscow by decision of the bankrupt company’s creditors. It inherited the assets of its Samara-based predecessor, which is currently undergoing liquidation. JSC Volgotanker became the new owner of BashVolgotanker. This means assets worth approximately 3.7 billion rubles, which were put up for auction, remained with the company, but under a new legal entity.

Volgotanker JSC soon filed a lawsuit against its subsidiary, demanding tens of millions of rubles from BashVolgotanker for unpaid vessel rentals. The case was  won  , and BashVolgotanker now owes its parent company almost 100 million rubles.

The subsidiary’s profit is negative, and revenue barely offsets this financial deficit. Both the plaintiff and defendant companies are headed by the same man, Vladimir Trigubov. Apparently, Volgotanker is deliberately seeking to bankrupt its subsidiary.

It is known that BashVolgotanker signed a contract worth approximately 4 billion rubles with Rosneft in 2018 for the transportation of petroleum products along the Ufa-Kavkaz route. This is approximately the amount for which Volgotanker’s assets were expected to be auctioned off.

Photo: Rusprofile

Therefore, if it fails to meet its obligations, Rosneft will be first in line among creditors and will be able to seize the assets of this enterprise. And if that’s not enough, it could seize the entire group. Considering the company’s interests in transshipping petroleum products through Prime Shipping Holding, this would greatly benefit Mr. Sechin.

Now let’s return to the people behind the new Volgotanker. The old Volgotanker was also among the company’s creditors. There was also the offshore company Samptrans Shipping Limited, which had long been involved with Volgotanker. This means that the interests of Rosimushchestvo and Oleg Bely are easily traced here.

Photo: Rusprofile

Now, the aforementioned individuals could bankrupt the subsidiary that uses the parent company’s vessels. The company is worth just under 300 million rubles. To recoup the 4 billion, Rosneft will likely need to divest Volgotanker JSC as well. Therefore, Sberbank’s exit from Prime Shipping Holding seems entirely logical for Mr. Sechin, who is unlikely to want to share his profits with Herman Gref.

Experienced reseller

But what benefit does Oleg Belay, who may be behind the entire scheme, stand to gain? Firstly, it appears that it was with his active participation that Volgotanker was brought to the point of bankruptcy. As we described above, the structure included an offshore company, into which the company’s funds could have been funneled.

In 2020, the company failed to sell to anyone, because who would want to buy such a "dead" asset? And now, it seems, Belay has managed to reach an agreement with Sechin to "privatize" Volgotanker and its subsidiaries into a state corporation—most likely for a handsome fee to Belay himself.

Bela is known as a "reseller" of the IT company Softline, who may have acted in the interests of the business of Philipp Gens, whose company Lanit was implicated in the criminal case of former Deputy Minister Anatoly Tikhonov.

Belaya owns a company called Trinfico, which has been implicated in numerous controversial cases. For example, in 2019, Kit Finance Trade  sold  shares of Belaya’s Trinfico Holdings, purchased through a repo, at an inflated price.

Oleg Belay may also have had a hand in the Russian Railways Welfare Fund, which he co-founded with Pyotr Zhukov, son of Alexander Zhukov, the First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma. The partners offered to provide a guarantee from Absolut Bank, which is owned by the Welfare Fund.

Thus, any shell company could, in essence, obtain a bank guarantee for an order from some state-owned company. The contract would then supposedly be terminated, and the bank would pay the money under the guarantee.

As we can see, Mr. Belay is a sort of "attacher" in the market for manipulation. It wouldn’t be surprising if he had a hand in what’s happening with Volgotanker.

And "Nefteflot" to boot

Interestingly, Volgotanker once held shares in Nefteflot CJSC, which was apparently sold during bankruptcy proceedings to Rostec entities (the shareholder register is held by RT-Capital). Nefteflot’s current CEO is the well-known Samara businessman Sergei Feofanov.

Recently, Central Design Bureau Neptune filed  a lawsuit  against Nefteflot for over a billion rubles. If the lawsuit is upheld, Nefteflot is unlikely to be able to pay. It’s possible they’re trying to force the company into bankruptcy. The owner of Central Design Bureau may be businessman Alexander Beskrovny. Media outlets have previously reported in detail on his family and why he’s allegedly currently building for Central Design Bureau. This businessman is  among  those implicated in a criminal case involving the embezzlement of 260 million rubles from the Russian National Guard.

Who knows, maybe the attempt to bankrupt Nefteflot is also the result of an agreement with someone who wants to take it in exchange for the criminal case being dropped? And is Igor Sechin building his own shipping empire?

Maria Sharapova