Export is still there: Snegurov and Doev preferred “golden” prospects instead of “garbage” concession

Entrepreneurs Igor Snegurov and Dmitry Doev neglected social obligations and spend money on the development of gold deposits?

According to the correspondent The Moscow Post in the Novosibirsk region, The Arbitration Court introduced a monitoring procedure in relation to Ecology-Novosibirsk LLC, a regional operator for the treatment of municipal solid waste (MSW). The company is part of the GK “VIS”, controlled by Igor Snegurov and his partner Dmitry Doev.

The structure became a municipal waste management operator in 2019, since then there have been many scandals around it. Interestingly, she herself filed an application to the bankruptcy court, explaining it by the presence of overdue debt in the amount of 1.86 billion rubles. That is, the company itself admits that there is no money to pay.

And what about the head GK “VIS” – one of the largest construction groups in Russia? Experts say that recently the company could have had serious financial problems associated with the entry of one of the key owners, Dmitry Doev, into a joint project with Rostec to develop the Kyuchus gold deposit.

Mr. Doev is not only the majority shareholder of VIS, but also the general director of the group. And also a co-owner of the Seligdar holding jointly with Rostec. He then became in October 2021 the winner of the auction for the right to develop the largest gold deposit from the unallocated fund of the Russian Federation – the Yakut Kyuchus.

As part of the auction, the company was able to bypass such competitors as two Rosatom structures, Polyus Magadan (Polyus’s subsidiary Said Kerimov, son of Senator Suleiman Kerimov), as well as Vladislav Sviblov’s Vostok GeoService and AtomGold ex -ChTPZ owner Andrey Komarov.

For what? That’s right, by offering a colossal price. “Seligdar” agreed to develop the field for almost 7.74 billion rubles, while the starting price was 2.2 billion. Where can Mr. Doev get money for such an event, if not from his parent company, VIS Group of Companies?

As a result, apparently, the group simply did not have enough money to fulfill their social obligations to Novosibirsk. Because there were other priorities.

However, the scandal with the TKO recuperator from VIS is just the tip of the iceberg. It seems that the structure may refuse to execute other socially significant projects.

Bankruptcy against the background of the “garbage apocalypse”

With Ecology-Novosibirsk, the story is much wider than a simple increase in debt. VIS Group owns it through OOO KPF, which owns 75% of the operator. The remaining 25% are distributed among Yuri Tuktarov, Igor Fraint, Ekaterina Nevzorova and Tatiana Bobyreva. The latter in 2020 replaced ex-deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Valentin Bobyrev among the co-owners.

At the same time, the structure has in its assets government orders (attention!) for 520 million rubles – as a supplier, and over 5 billion – as a customer. Where the money went is not clear.

Almost immediately after starting work as a regoperator (and this is the very beginning of 2020), a garbage collapse arose in Novosibirsk. Then the Novosibirsk landfills were literally filled up with garbage. The reason could be simple – the carriers “LaTrans”, “EcoLine” and “ECO-LINE” left the market at the same time, which took out garbage in the Iskitimsky district of the region, Leninsky and Zaeltsovsky districts of the city.

Three companies in total owned 20 garbage trucks and 5,000 garbage containers. They cited non-payments by the regooperator as the reason for leaving the market: the specified amounts of claims from three carriers in total exceeded 200 million rubles. Wrote about it RBC. Apparently, they never saw the money. That is, problems arose already at the very beginning of the work of the “daughter” of the VIS Group of Companies.

At the same time, Ecology-Novosibirsk works not only in Novosibirsk, but also, for example, in Tomsk. There it came to a criminal case against the director of the Tomsk branch. It was initiated in May 2021 on the grounds of fraud with state support provided to the company.

The prosecutor’s office checked the implementation of budgetary legislation on the basis of materials received from the FSB, and found violations. In total, out of the allocated 28 million rubles, about 8.5 million could have been stolen. Writes about this “Taiga.Info”. At the same time, residents of the Tomsk region complained about the same problems with garbage collection as Novosibirsk residents.

Another question adds fuel to the fire. Back in 2016, the same Ecology-Novosibirsk was the builder of waste sorting complexes for 6.5 billion rubles near the villages of Razdolnoye and Verkh-Tula. The terms of the agreement caused sharp criticism from deputies and public figures, including the location of the complexes.

In 2018, a number of conditions were changed by an additional agreement to the contract. Thus, the authorities of the region reported that the agreement with the investor would be concluded for 25 years. The first stage of its implementation involves the construction of two waste sorting complexes with an investment of 4.3 billion rubles.

And what now – in connection with the statement of self-bankruptcy, these projects are hanging in the air?

Bridge “zaVIS”

However, the treatment of MSW is far from the only example of public-private partnership between VIS structures, which is associated with social issues. Problems in almost all other areas. What is worth only the long-suffering fourth bridge across the Ob in Novosibirsk, which the group of Doev and Snegurov began to build as part of the PPP!

It was planned to hand over the bridge by the end of 2022. Even a year ago, it became clear that VIS simply would not be able to meet this deadline. However, the owners of the group managed to agree on an extension of the construction period until September 17, 2023. Today, even this date looks unrealistic. There is talk that the bridge can only be completed by 2024, and this turns it into a huge long-term construction with a lot of traffic jams and inconvenience for the population.

The bridge is being built by VIS at its own expense, the passage on it must be paid – this, within the framework of the PPP, was probably what Doev and Snegurov hoped to make money on. But even at the construction stage, apparently, they decided to save a lot of money, which caused a scandal.

Alexander Burmistrov, deputy of the city council of Novosibirsk, announced the savings of VIS. In May 2021, he asked law enforcement officers to take a closer look at the implementation of the project. Wrote about it too “Taiga.Info”.

According to Burmistrov, the builders of the bridge could “save” about 500 million rubles on the purchase of cheap Turkish pipes instead of the German ones provided for by the project. The deputy director of the Siberian Concession Company (part of the VIS Group of Companies and directly involved in the construction of the structure) Yevgeny Firsov could not answer where the money went.

Moreover, the city administration confirmed that on the storm sewer being built as part of the project, these same Turkish pipes had subsided by almost a meter. The same Burmistrov had information that the company could change locking equipment for cheaper analogues. “Wherever a concessionaire appears, problems appear,” the people’s choice concluded, recalling the problems of Ecology-Novosibirsk.

Traffic in this area of ​​Novosibirsk has been restricted since 2020, and there is no end in sight to the construction of the bridge

If this is true, the conclusion suggests itself: it seems that VIS has no money at all, or there is a very great desire to save money for some other projects and undertakings. And don’t care about commitments! And do you care about the difficulties in the movement of cars that have been dragging on since 2020? Not to mention the fact that lesser quality materials used in construction can end in great tragedy.

Diseases will wait

True, when this scandal erupted, neither Alexander Burmistrov, nor other deputies and politicians of Novosibirsk knew that this was far from all the trouble that such a “partner” could bring to the city.

In June 2020, National Medical Holding LLC was established, which is part of the VIS Group. The holding also includes the Seventh Concession Company, which became the concessionaire of the Novosibirsk authorities for the construction of seven clinics at once in different parts of the city. The city really needs these facilities, especially in a pandemic.

It was assumed that the investor would invest 1.4 billion rubles, and another 1.6 billion rubles – this would be a grant from the region. The rest was planned to be borrowed. At the same time, according to the terms of the agreement, from 2023, every three months, the regional budget had to pay significant amounts to the concessionaire. But if earlier it was said about 260 million rubles, then the payments somehow increased to 1 billion in 2023, and then to 3.1 billion at all.

What’s in practice? Terms of construction of polyclinics are disrupted. At the stage of concluding contracts, it was assumed that the facilities would be commissioned in 2021. Then – in 2022. Now it is clear that they will be able to hand over them no earlier than 2023, and this period may have to be shifted.

The authorities also acknowledged the delay. Local deputies even suggested that they would never be handed over. Writes about it “Taiga.Info”.

So, just in the picture, while polyclinics in Novosibirsk look like. And this is in the midst of a pandemic.

Against the backdrop of a lawsuit about the self-bankruptcy of Ecology-Novosibirsk, this prediction does not look unrealistic. How did VIS itself explain such shifts?

It’s very simple: allegedly, this is due to the protracted stages of preparation for construction, the search for contractors, and obtaining permits. The explanation is weak, given the “green light” that the authorities have given to the concessionaire’s projects.

Tons of gold blind my eyes

Let’s get back to where we started: it is likely that the problems of all these projects are related to the same thing as the scandal with the MSW recycling operator. The company simply has no money. But wait: at the end of 2020, the same parent JSC VIS earned a total of 436 million rubles with a revenue of 500 million rubles. Apparently, this does not take into account the huge money from government contracts, and various subsidies, and assistance from local authorities.

VIS had money. Already 200 million for “Ecology-Novosibirsk” for sure. Did they “gone” to Kyuchus?

That’s right, only this was before the auction for the development of the Kyuchus gold deposit in Yakutia, where Dmitry Doev was so eager to get. And could his partner Igor Snegurov stand aside when strategic gold reserves of 175.3 tons are at stake?