A big sale is coming: Andrey Kostin expects to enrich himself at the expense of USC property?
Banker Andrey Kostin entered the USC business, possibly in order to make money on the sale of the property of the state corporation to close developers and oligarchs.
The head of VTB, Andrei Kostin, recently replaced Georgy Poltavchenko on the board of directors of the United Shipbuilding Company (USC). Recently, Kostin has shown a keen interest in USC affairs and even met with the President of the Russian Federation to discuss its plans.
At the same time, it has long been no secret that the corporation, which was conceived almost as an image project of Vladimir Putin, under the leadership of Alexei Rakhmanov, went into debt and became overgrown with scandals, including those related to the operation of ships manufactured at its factories.
In order to raise the USC “from the bottom”, where it has sunk, considerable investments will be required, and how much VTB will pull such is another question. But it is unlikely that Kostin would have taken on such a task if he had not benefited from it – not only image, but also financial – after all, he is a banker. Why did the head of VTB USC understand our correspondent.
Assets cannot be counted
USC is a giant corporation, which includes several dozen factories, but, in addition, the company has a huge amount of administrative real estate that can be profitably sold or used. In St. Petersburg, the company’s office is located in a prestigious business center at 161 Obukhovskaya Oborony Avenue. According to the maps, this is private property, entirely occupied exclusively by USC, so the building apparently belongs to it. 3125.8 sq. m worth 37.7 million rubles. And that’s just one building.
Photo: Roscadastre
At the same time, we managed to find ads for the sale of apartments in this building.
But every plant, USC design bureau also has administrative buildings on its balance sheet. Not to mention the buildings of the factories themselves. The same “Baltic Plant”, where the leadership has recently changed – Alexei Kadilov was replaced by a protege of “Rosatom” Yuri Gordienkov, is located on an area of 511891 square meters. m on a plot with a cadastral value of almost a billion rubles.
Photo: Roscadastre
It is possible that Mr. Kostin’s company restructuring plan includes a reduction in the number of the corporation’s existing assets by selling some of them and “improving” the rest with the proceeds. But will they all be used for their intended purpose? In this case, the fact that Rakhmanov brought the enterprise to the handle is more of a “trump card” for Kostin than a burden.
Hunters to USC
In order to think that the future of the corporation may develop according to such a scenario, there are more weighty reasons. Recently, VTB has been systematically getting rid of assets. Grain enterprises go to Alexander Vinokurov, and a week ago the bank withdrew from the capital of one of the largest developers, the PIK corporation.
By the way, developers need space for construction, and USC space is the most suitable for creating a premium-class residential complex right by the water. Isn’t this where the legs of the big sell-off we predict grow?
On the lands of enterprises, projects are being developed by the same PIK, Lenstroytrest and other development companies in St. Petersburg and other cities where there are areas that still belong to USC. In general, it is easier to see who VTB lends to and which of the developers is in partnership with them – most likely, Kostin favors them in the issue with USC.
Alexander Vinokurov cannot be written off either – the owner of a mass of grain assets is interested in expanding the port infrastructure and, as our publication previously investigated, with the help of Kostin, he may soon receive the Novorossiysk grain terminal.
There may be other hunters for corporate assets. In 2013, Mikhail Gutseriev showed interest in them – he could acquire the Krasnoye Sormovo plant and the St. Petersburg Proletarian plant. Both assets are still with USC and both are problematic. 0.8 billion rubles were poured into the Proletarian Plant in 2021.
Exit – one by one
VTB may be the first to auction off an asset in Feodosia – SZ More JSC. Since February 9 this year, the plant has been going bankrupt at the request of PK MS LLC, which formally belongs to the Bochagin family, but in fact can act in the interests of the same USC – after all PK MS is a major supplier under government contracts to corporation enterprises.
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
According to information from the public cadastral map, the lands of the plant have already been recognized as private property. Although the form of permitted use is still heavy industry. Plot size 315.6 sq. m. costs 86.9 million rubles.
Photo: Roscadastre
In March of this year, it became known about the intention to reassess the assets of the Kronstadt Marine Plant, which USC was also going to sell under the hammer last year at a cost of about 187 million rubles.
On the territory of the ANO “Agency for the Development of the Territory of Kronstadt” (the former “daughter” of USC, liquidated in 2022), which was registered at St. Petersburg, Stremyannaya st. 11, now Kronverk 2 LLC is a company engaged in intermediary services in the purchase and sale of real estate.
And at the addresses of many operating assets of USC – offices whose activities are not related to shipbuilding. For example, at the registration address of the Khabarovsk shipbuilding plant – the company “Pobeda”, which is engaged in car maintenance, the restaurant “Breeze”, a trade and household store, recently moved from there.
In general, everything points to the fact that from a shipbuilding USC it is turning into a commercial unprofitable structure. Recently, The Moscow Post conducted a so-called audit of the objects and property of the corporation, which are already up for sale at the moment. Among them are non-residential buildings, cars and ships.
Will Kostin OSK help “get up from her knees” or profit from her property and drive her even deeper into a financial “hole” – time will tell.