Even during the life of Alexander Shchukin, former partners began to dispose of his assets. How did it happen, and why did some companies go bankrupt?
According to the correspondent The Moscow Post in the Kemerovo region, the group of companies “Kuznetsky Yuzhny” plans to implement a project for the construction of the concentrating plant “Tayozhnaya” within three years. The enterprise will ensure the processing of all coal mined at the mine. In total, according to experts, the project will cost 4-6 billion rubles if domestic equipment is used.
Timur Frank, co-founder of Open-Pit Mine Kuznetsky Yuzhny LLC, and Ivan Povoroznyuk, General Director of the management company of the open-pit mine LLC Karbo UK, became co-owners of the Tayozhnaya Enrichment Factory LLC. All these companies are included in the structure of Kuznetsky Yuzhny. In the new company, Frank owns 90%, Povoroznyuk – the remaining 10%.
In the footsteps of Shchukin
Both entrepreneurs at one time were lawyers for Alexander Shchukin, who was on trial in the case of extorting shares of Inskoy Razrez LLC from their former owner Anton Tsygankov. This was written by the publication “New Siberia”. Unfortunately, Alexander Shchukin died under circumstances that were not fully clarified. It happened in July 2021, when he was under house arrest.
Shchukin’s death looked strange. Against this background, the business success of the lawyers who accompanied his criminal case looks even stranger.
Recall that together with Shchukin, the head of the ICR department for the Kemerovo region, General Sergei Kalinkin, Schukin’s lawyer Gennady Vernigor, vice-governors of the Kemerovo region Alexander Danilchenko and Alexei Ivanov, employees of the regional ICR and the head of the regional administration department were involved in the case.
While the proceedings were going on, all the assets of “ITEK” (the company holding the assets of Shchukin’s firms), which belonged to Shchukin, incredibly ended up in the hands of Timur Frank. How did it happen? Back in 2014, Shchukin registered his company for him. Rumor has it that beforehand, Frank properly psychologically processed a businessman who did not understand anything in jurisprudence.
Allegedly, it was Shchukin who was supposed to remain the main beneficiary. At the same time being taken out from under the blow. But now no one will say how it really happened, whether there was pressure on Shchukin.
Timur Frank. Photo: press service of the Kuznetsky Yuzhny mine
As a result, Shchukin’s wife “grabbed” the assets, and through the court she managed to invalidate the deal. This is reported “Sib.fm”.
Nevertheless, Frank turned out to be more cunning and as a result, the shares still ended up in his hands …
And you Brute?
People familiar with the situation claim that Shchukin allegedly trusted Frank like his own son. As if, he relied on him in carrying out very dubious transactions, including transactions with bills. Actually, for dubious operations with bills of exchange, Shchukin fell under a criminal case.
In 2016, Business Investments, whose CEO, by the way, has been Povoroznyuk since 2014, filed a lawsuit against Taldinskoye-Kyrgayskoye Mine Administration JSC and Taldinskoye-Yuzhnoye Mine Administration JSC to recover more than one and a half billion rubles, which they allegedly owed Shchukin.
Only in court it turned out that the bills for which the plaintiff had collected from the “debtors” were forged. In 2016, Shchukin was prosecuted for attempted fraud on an especially large scale, she wrote. “Russian newspaper”.
Until now, there is a version that allegedly the story of allegedly counterfeit bills could be the idea not of Shchukin, but of Frank. Like, Shchukin was not capable of this. Moreover, I did not even suspect that for this you can rattle behind bars.
Isn’t that why, with a clear conscience, he wrote them down on himself? Then I had to take the rap… But Frank and his partner Povoroznyuk have money, and they are only expanding their own business.
How they dispose of Shchukin’s former assets can be judged from information from open sources.
Behind Shchukin
Frank has repeatedly dealt with cases that otherwise could raise questions from both the business community and specialized specialists in control and supervisory authorities. And he could do it behind the back of Shchukin’s former partner.
Here we again return to “ITEK”. It turned out that Frank could have had an “alternate airfield” in case the deal with obtaining shares through Shchukin did not bring the desired results.
In 2014, ITEK, under the leadership of Frank, issued a guarantee for 1 billion rubles for a certain Sibenergougolsnab Trading House LLC, co-owned by Alexei Barabash, to Chernihiv Refinery CJSC, the main shareholder of which was the same Barabash. Sibenergougolsnab “expectedly soon went bankrupt. And such an episode is not a single one in the biography of Mr. Frank.
And in 2016, Frank bought out ITEK’s billion dollar “debt” and thus became its main creditor in its bankruptcy proceedings, which means that the company’s assets should have gone to him in the first place.
Moreover, it can be assumed that when Shchukin was under investigation, Frank, using the authority of the head of a number of organizations, Shchukin, could well transfer part of the businessman’s assets to other persons. And who would be surprised if in this case those businessmen turned out to be close to Frank?
Shchukin’s wife continued to fight for her husband’s assets. In 2017, she, as a shareholder of Business Investments, sued Ivan Povoroznyuk. The requirement to recover 71.2 million rubles from him, as the representative of the plaintiff explained, was based on the unprofitability of transactions that he concluded as the head of the enterprise in 2015-2016, writes “Kommersant”. But somehow, so far, apparently, the court has not made a decision …
Useful acquaintances
On the market, I cautiously assume that lawyers, especially Frank, may have great connections in the judicial system, in particular, in the system of arbitration and bankruptcy trustees. Which, allegedly, allows them to still “stay afloat”.
For example, it is known that Frank heads the Satisfied Wolves parachute team, which includes the ITEK arbitration manager Alexander Furman and Andrey Barabash, the main shareholder of the Chernihiv Oil Refinery.
Another friend of Frank, Oleg Kamenev, is the arbitration manager of the NPS SOPAU “Alliance of Managers”. With him, Frank in 2019 bankrupted Kaltanskoye LLC. Frank himself also worked as an arbitration manager, and his wife worked in the court of the Kemerovo region from 2008 to 2015. The very one in which Frank basically wins his courts. All these facts are told by the publication “New Siberia”
Timur Frank was also a partner of the former vice-governor of the Kemerovo region Maxim Makin, who was credited with information attacks on the then governor Aman Tuleev.
And now the gentlemen are going to expand their business. But, “a wedge is being knocked out with a wedge. It is very similar to the fact that the money allegedly earned by Frank and Povoroznyuk can “spin” in their new company. In addition, Timur Frank’s ill-wishers are trying to attribute to him a lot of property and real estate abroad.