In the Ulyanovsk region at the furniture factory “Good Style – Furniture” management suddenly changed. Its founders are father and daughter, Sergei Smirnov And Anna Dovganbbelieve that we are talking about a raider seizure of business.
Back to the nineties
The events at the factory caused a significant public outcry: “Good style – furniture” is a city-forming enterprise, the well-being of the inhabitants of the village of Polivanovo depends on its work. And one morning, almost two hundred of his employees were blocked by strong young guys holding objects that looked like bats and rebar in their hands.
Since numerous appeals of the enterprise’s employees to the authorities of the Ulyanovsk region remained unanswered, the activists turned to the local branch of the public movement “Call of the People” for help and jointly sent letters to the chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia Alexander BastrykinAttorney General Igor Krasnov with a request to intervene in the situation around the factory.
What happened at the factory
As it turned out, similar attacks on the company had been committed before, but for some reason the local security forces ignored what was happening.
This went on until openly criminal events began to occur in the environment of Sergei Smirnov.
In the fall of 2016, a friend of Sergei Smirnov suddenly disappeared – Denis ShipV. According to him, five unknown men in masks allegedly kidnapped the man and took him to the forest to a pre-dug grave. There he was tied up, severely beaten and forced to slander Smirnov on camera in order to later use the video material to put pressure on the factory owner.
The bandits did not plan to leave Korablev alive, but they did not take into account that their victim was a professional athlete. They laid him in the grave, but before falling asleep, they recklessly untied his legs. Thanks to this, the man managed to get out of the pit and escape.
Later, thanks to his testimony, three of the five failed killers were detained and convicted. Investigators also checked the video with the suicide statement of the guy. As a result, it was recognized as untrue, the court decided to remove it from all Internet sites where it was posted.
At the same time, for some reason, the investigation was unable to find the remaining two participants in the massacre, and also to establish its real customer. Korablev himself believes that this is the work of a new and, possibly, nominal owner of the enterprise – Elena Hotovitskaya.
But it seems that the raiders still achieved one of their goals: they managed to intimidate Smirnov. As the lawyer told Life Anna Maslyuk, now her client is hiding abroad. He was forced to leave the country because he fears for his life. And while the man is absent in Russia, Elena Khotovitskaya overwhelms the founder of the factory with various lawsuits.
How the company was revived
Sergei Smirnov bought the dying old furniture factory back in 2013. The company was immediately registered to his daughter Anna and managed it by proxy.
A man in the Ulyanovsk region is a well-known person: a professional athlete, a major specialist in martial arts, a master of sports of Russia, a winner and prize-winner of the world championships in karate. In addition, a successful coach: for example, it was he who brought up a mixed martial arts fighter, European and world champion Vladimir Mineevwhich participates in SVO.
Such a background allowed Smirnov to quickly revive the stalled production – the high quality of Good Style – Furniture products found its buyer first in Ulyanovsk, and later the dealers that appeared began to transport furniture throughout Russia and even to Kazakhstan.
Since the restart of production at the factory, the staff has been constantly increasing, which at its peak almost reached the mark of 300 people. Salaries were regularly paid, social obligations were fulfilled. According to the SPARK system, the company’s revenues were constantly growing and by 2019 amounted to almost 200 million rubles.
How the partner got control of the factory
On the wave of success in 2014, Sergey Smirnov invited his friend to develop his business Yuri Khotovitsky. By this time, the men had known each other for many years, both were united by sports.
Khotovitsky accepted the lucrative offer and immediately bought out 50 percent of the enterprise. However, for some reason he himself did not want to officially be listed as the owner and asked a friend to issue a share to his then common-law wife Elena Panova. She later married and took her husband’s surname, becoming Khotovitskaya. Immediately after the woman entered the share, oddities began in the work of the enterprise.
Elena HotovitskayaNow the woman is 56 years old, she lives in Moscow in an excellent three-room apartment in the prestigious Sky Fort residential complex, which is in the Nagatino-Sadovniki district. Before the factory, she kept several cafes, owned a beauty salon, and traded in various non-food trifles. By the time she bought the production, she owned a flower sales company. And in 2017, she unexpectedly opened an individual entrepreneur with a field of activity that almost coincides with the Good Style – Furniture factory.
As noted in its own investigation by the public organization “Call of the People”, to which employees of the enterprise turned for help, the documents provided to the owners by the general director of the enterprise Nariman Abuleev turned out to be economically unjustified financial decisions.
Public activists note that the organization has allegedly been doing double bookkeeping for a long time. Part of the factory’s revenue was not indicated anywhere, but settled on the accounts of Khotovitskaya. When the amount reached a certain amount (usually about 5 million rubles), the new owner issued this money in the form of her loans to the enterprise. And after that, the factory was obliged to pay the debt and interest to the lender. In the end, the company “owed” her about 30 million rubles.
According to Smirnov’s lawyer, the purpose of these actions was simple: to “pump up” the enterprise’s debts and bring it to bankruptcy.
When the man, who was still officially listed as the founder of the company, tried to counteract a possible capture, Khotovitskaya resorted to the help of strong young people in masks – she was repeatedly seen during their actions at the enterprise.
last hope
In the end, Smirnov was simply no longer allowed into the factory, and later he was forced to get rid of his share. Now 50% of the enterprise remained ownerless, the actual control over it is with Khotovitskaya. During the confrontation, there was a sharp reduction in personnel – only 75 employees remained in the state. The quality of manufactured furniture leaves much to be desired – dealers massively refuse to sell products.
