Fish Days of Senator Ponomarev: Okeanrybflot gets rid of quotas

In the Kamchatka Territory, the Okeanrybflot group of companies has refused part of the quotas for fishing.

Valery Ponomarev, senator from the Kamchatka Territory, was considered to be the beneficiary of this group. Apparently, Ponomarev really needs money. After all, the problems caused by the bankruptcy of Interprombank, where he was a shareholder, have not gone away.

Golden Senator

According to the Kommersant publication, the Okeanrybflot Group, represented by its subsidiary JSC Alaid, transferred the rights to catch over 3.6 thousand tons of cod per year to the seaside group Sigma Marine Technology. Okeanrybflot is one of the largest fish producers in Russia. The company owns quotas for catching over 280 thousand tons of fish resources per year.

As of March 2020, 49% of Okeanrybflot JSC belonged to the senator from the Kamchatka Territory Valery Ponomarev and Igor Yevtushka, a former deputy of the local legislative assembly. At the same time, since Ponomarev has been a senator since October 13, 2021, he cannot be engaged in business.

However, since companies with a legal form such as JSC (essentially closed joint stock companies) may not publicly disclose information about their shareholders, it is possible that Ponomarev transferred his shares in Okeanrybflot to a third party. There is also no information that the politician transferred his share to trust management.

Valery Ponomarev. Photo: council.gov.ru

At the end of 2020, Okeanrybflot’s revenue decreased. So if the company finished 2019, reporting on revenue in the amount of 18.3 billion rubles, then 2020 brought Okeanrybflot only 17.3 billion rubles. That is, the fall in revenue for the year occurred by about a billion rubles. Comparable dynamics at “Okeanrybflot” and net profit. In 2019, the company recorded a net profit of 4.1 billion rubles. In 2020 – already 2.7 billion rubles. A fall of approximately 1.4 billion rubles per year. At the same time, the cost of sold quotas is estimated at 11 billion rubles. Obviously, Okeanrybflot may try to straighten out its shaken financial position by selling quotas.

It should be noted that fish for Ponomorev and Yevtushka is clearly a source of considerable wealth. In the Federation Council, Ponomarev was one of the wealthiest. Its annual income should be about 2.7 billion rubles. Not far from him, his partner, Igor Yevtushok, who receives about 2.3 billion rubles a year, left.

If we recall the earlier “fish” activities of the senator from the Kamchatka Territory Valery Ponomarev and the former deputy Igor Yevtushka, then it can be noted that in 2018 the asset of Ponomarev and Yevtushka fell into the epicenter of the scandal.

As The Moscow Post reported, the company “Make Fish Ltd” (part of “Okeanrybflot”) “clashed” with Boris Nevzorov’s organization “Ustkamchatryba”. Nevzorov’s company won the competition for the lease of a large fishing area, with an area of ​​60 hectares, but the head of Delta Fish Ltd. hastened to send a letter to German Zverev, president of the All-Russian Association of Fisheries, with a request to review the results of the auction. According to representatives of the Okeanrybflot Group, the competitor allegedly provided false information about the number of employees in the company.

Killer Helicopters

The activities of the “helicopter” business of Valery Ponomarev and Igor Yevtushka also had a rather ambiguous character. As The Moscow Post previously reported, a Vityaz-Aero helicopter crashed into a lake in the South Kamchatka Reserve in August 2021. Three crew members and 13 passengers were believed to be on board, 8 people were killed. The cause of the tragedy has so far been called difficult weather conditions, which provoked a pilot error and the Mi-8 crash.

Senator Valery Ponomarev and former deputy of the regional legislative assembly Igor Yevtushok own Vityaz-Aero jointly with another former deputy Igor Redkin. By the way, Redkin was suspected of killing a man by negligence.

Igor Evtushok. Photo: old.zaksobr.kamchatka.ru

At the same time, Vityaz-Aero has been involved in accidents before. So, in January 2020, a group of 18 tourists and the crew of an airline helicopter were evacuated from Mutnovsky volcano, which could not take to the skies due to icing.

In April 2017, the Vityaz-Aero helicopter made a hard landing in the area of ​​the same Mutnovsky volcano, as a result, 3 passengers were injured, and the aircraft was damaged.

In December 2015, near the heliport of the Kshukskoye gas condensate field in the Sobolevsky district, a Mi-8T helicopter of the Vityaz-Aero aviation company made a hard landing with 22 passengers and 3 crew members on board. One person died and 11 passengers and crew were injured. A large number of accidents involving Vityaz-Aero vehicles were associated with the fact that the company could poorly monitor the serviceability of equipment.

Unlucky banker

Valery Ponomarev was also engaged in banking. In July 2019, he became the majority shareholder of Interprombank. The businessman, together with his wife, owned 26.29% of the shares of the credit institution. But at the moment, this bank, as the Rusprofile website clarifies, is in the process of bankruptcy. On April 16, 2021, the Central Bank announced that Interprombank’s license had been revoked.

The bank’s financial performance raised many questions. According to information from open sources, for the period December 2019 – December 2020. net assets “sank” by more than 2 billion rubles, net profit decreased by the same amount, and the loan portfolio “sank” by 3.5 billion rubles.

The verdict of the Central Bank specialists was extremely clear. As it turned out, Interprombank, in particular, underestimated the amount of reserves required for the formation of reserves, and also made transactions with non-core assets in order to artificially improve financial performance and conceal its real financial position. In addition, Interprombank violated federal laws regulating banking activities, as well as the regulations of the Bank of Russia, in connection with which the regulator repeatedly applied measures to it over the past 12 months before the license was revoked, including two restrictions on attracting funds. contributors. But everything turned out to be in vain. The bank has ceased operations.

At the same time, it cannot be ruled out that the Central Bank and also the Deposit Insurance Agency will help bring the management and owners of Interprombank to subsidiary liability. Perhaps, realizing this, Valery Ponomarev will try, as they say, “to resolve issues.” It is clear that this requires resources. In this regard, the sale of quotas to the side by the Okeanrybflot subsidiary could be the easiest way to get quick and hard money.