In early February, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow placed Vladimir Tolkachev, ex-president of Geotech Seismic Exploration (GSR), under house arrest. He is suspected of embezzling and withdrawing about 5 billion rubles through controlled companies.
Tolkachev headed Geotech Seismic in 2017. At that time, PJSC occupied about 50% of the seismic exploration market in Russia. The main clients were vertically integrated oil companies. Among them are such giants as Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, LUKOIL, NOVATEK, Surgutneftegaz, Bashneft and other major players. In 2020, GSR was included in the list of backbone organizations of the Russian fuel and energy complex.
However, at the time of Tolkachev’s voluntary resignation from the post of company president at the end of October 2021, things were not going well at Geotech Seismic. The market share fell, according to various estimates, to 25-30%. And this is not surprising, given that the company’s investment costs have fallen to a level that is not sufficient to maintain equipment in proper condition.
According to industry sources, out of 42 exploration parties (fracturing) available in 2017 – the so-called subdivisions that carry out the search for minerals on the ground – only about 15-20 remained in the company, and none of them is considered completely not completed. For example, the French Nomad vibrator trucks, which show off on the main page of the GSR website, which allow seismic exploration without the use of explosives, were simply not found in good condition at the company. At the same time, on the balance sheet of the enterprise, for show, it is listed in the reporting, including frank scrap metal, which is also being sold on the site.
On the one hand, in the reports, Geotek positions itself as a profitable company, and on the other hand, no payments on loans, no renovation of special equipment or an increase in batches – that is, investments in turnover – have been observed since 2017. Where the money went is an open question. A lot of money went into the company.
The total investments of Otkritie Bank, which is the main creditor of the company and until the end of 2020 a 100% shareholder of the company (at the end of 2020 Geotech was sold to TRUST Bank), as of December 30, 2020, were estimated at almost 26 billion rubles! Apparently, this is a loan for 16 billion rubles and 10 billion rubles, which the bank used in 2019 to increase the company’s authorized capital. That is, in three years the Bank increased investments in the company by more than 3 billion rubles?
This makes you wonder – was there really a profit? Perhaps this question will be answered by the size of the receivables of the Geotek group, which, according to data from open sources, as of December 31, 2020, amounted to 11.8 billion rubles with the company’s annual revenue for the entire 2020 of 13.8 billion rubles. . TNG-Group, which is the main competitor of Geotek, has accounts receivable of only 4.6 billion rubles with revenues of more than 24 billion rubles. An analysis of the financial statements of the companies included in PJSC GSR showed that the accounts receivable to the Group of third parties do not exceed RUB 1.6 billion. Thus, it turns out that more than 10 billion rubles are internal debts, which clearly contradicts the principles of IFRS. “What was it for? As I see it, the company was generating losses – negative cash flow. Top management had a system of incentives in the form of bonuses that were tied to financial results under IFRS, ”a source in the industry suggested.
According to the source, one of the Big Four auditing companies is currently completing a report on the activities of Geotech Seismic. The customer of the study could be Otkritie Bank, which until recently owned a full stake in Geotek and acted as its main creditor. It is possible that soon the results of the investigation will be announced by law enforcement agencies.