International Paper, which owns half of the Ilim group, intends to sell its stake. This information, as you know, appeared in the spring of 2022, but the process, judging by indirect data, is underway. In the current situation, the question is not whether or not the Americans will part with their share, but who will become its new owner.
Recently, information began to appear that Segezha Group, the largest timber industry holding in the European part of Russia, is not averse to taking over this vacant asset. If the deal works out, it will be the biggest pearl in the acquisitions of the beneficiary of the Segezha Group – Vladimir Yevtushenkov, which he has been very actively making lately. All these acquisitions are poured into his AFK Sistema.
About this earlier: “Half-American Ilima pie: so get it to you … But to whom?”
So, Yevtushenkov has already begun to gain a foothold in the Irkutsk region, having bought the company Inter Forest Rus last year with timber assets, including in the Baikal region. That is, the oligarch is already in the garden.
But Ilim is, of course, a completely different scale in our region, including the scale of influence. We don’t know how the relationship between Zakhar Smushkin and the Zingarevich brothers with a new partner will be built when this prospect is realized.
But it is absolutely certain that the latter, owning half of the shares of the largest logger in the Irkutsk region, will certainly not change. And there is no doubt that Yevtushenkov, like a very large cuckoo, will try to throw everyone out of the nest in the future. Because to him, to put it simply, everything is possible. Yevtushenkov has always built business through acquaintances and connections at the highest level.
As for the immediate prospects, Yevtushenkov’s approach is known to be: cut more. Not without reason, in 2021, Segezha Group broke into the leaders of logging in Russia, overtaking the same Ilim, which for many years was the undisputed chief lumberjack of the country.
And now, the contingent of the Federal Penitentiary Service is acting as the locomotive of Segezha’s priority activities. Obviously, here, too, there is no question of purely economic factors in the development of Yevtushenkov’s business. His profile, let’s say, is to fit into opportunistic niches. And convicts with their free labor are not the only such niche on the agenda.
So, for example, in July 2022, a draft was submitted to the State Duma, according to which sanitary felling of trees will be allowed in the Central Ecological Zone of Baikal. Until December 31, 2025, the forest fund lands are going to be transferred to industrial and other special purpose lands. The text reads: “Dead and damaged plantations as a result of forest fires require immediate priority sanitary measures and, above all, clear sanitary felling.”
This, as can be assumed, will not fail to take advantage of the aforementioned forest oligarch. If he manages to turn the scheme of “sanitary felling” even in the existing conditions. So, Babr told how the Baikal Forest Company, the ultimate beneficiary of which is, again, Segezha Group, rapaciously cuts down forests in Buryatia for the raw material base of the Selenginsky pulp and paper mill, and at the same time for sale to China.
And if anything, he will become the same active orderly of the Baikal forest from the Irkutsk region. And the prospects are immeasurably greater!
The bottom line is that on one side of Baikal, on the other: under the guise of sampling damaged forests, continuous logging can be carried out. If there are hairy hands in power (and Mr. Yevtushenkov definitely has them, and not even two!), then no regional forces will certainly be able to prevent this.
Indeed, even before any permits, a similar scheme in the territory of the Irkutsk region was used by a forestry businessman Evgeny Bakurov.
Recall that at one time Bakurov’s companies won auctions for the lease of plots for modest selective felling. And then there were additional agreements that increased the initial harvesting area dozens of times. Moreover, the cuttings made on these enlarged areas were immediately registered as sanitary. Although, in fact, healthy trees were felled in a row.
The Red Minister Sergei Sheverda was imprisoned for this schematosis, but Bakurov, although slightly scolded, was even given a letter in the spring of 2022. Because the proceeds do not smell of anything and can be used, including for various important purposes.
Is there any doubt that Vladimir Yevtushenkov, who is very far from Bakurov, with a big name and under the flag of Ilim, will certainly be able to fundamentally restructure his business in the new legal conditions? Name after all, no matter what, really loud.
Moreover, sanitary cuttings are only an example, but by no means the only possibility.
And then approximately such a landscape, captured after the activities of the “Baikal Forest Company” on the territory of the “Pribaikalsky” reserve, can be seen in all the vast expanses around Baikal…