Anyone who loves detective stories and spy movies knows that you should always pay attention to details. And behind any informational noise, look for oddities that are hidden in this noise.
Actually, the authors of the films did not come up with anything – the first thing that any intelligence officer or investigator is taught is to look for details in the flow of information that are knocked out of this flow.
An example is the development company “Donstroy”, one of the top three leaders in the field. If you enter its name into a search engine, then the bulk of the materials will be positive for Donstroy. The set of headlines confirms the idea that the company’s management is trying to convey to the masses – Donstroy is doing well, it is more reliable than ever.
But some things are disturbing:
“In Moscow and the Moscow region, apartments in new buildings with decoration began to disappear. Some of the large developers decided to stop selling such housing due to a lack of materials … New buildings with repairs ended at the Donstroy company.
“Donstroy is selecting among 50 companies from Turkey, China and India that supply building materials… We promised, and we will provide our customers with decent living conditions, maintain the quality and fullness of projects with infrastructure features.”
“Donstroy and VTB launched a mortgage program with a subsidized rate of 1.9% per annum.”
“Donstroy offered an installment plan for 3 years at 10% per annum”…
At first glance, there is nothing special in these messages – it seems that this is an ordinary “jeans” placed in the media for the money of the advertising department of “Donstroy” under the guise of informational materials. But, as the same spies say, look for oddities and look at the problem as a whole.
Read these headlines with the sanctions in mind, which have left Russian businesses in huge trouble. Development is no exception. Due to sanctions, the demand for housing is rapidly falling, banks are refusing loans, the cost of objects is rising in price, sales are falling. It turns out a closed problem, in which not everyone can survive. a circle
The next is the lack of quality building materials that came from Europe. Donstroy is frantically trying to find a replacement for them in China and India. Whether he finds it is also another question. But even if they find it, will their quality be the same as, for example, in Germany or France? And what will be the price? If someone thinks that Indian or Chinese business will not take advantage of the hopelessness of the Russian situation and will engage in charity, then this is a mistake.
The next question – the buyer of housing (and it is bought mainly at the project stage) paid for the Italian toilet bowl, German tiles and French windows. And now Donstroy is offering him a toilet from India instead. And it is still unknown at what price.
The idea can be developed further, but the main thing is clear – Donstroy faced unforeseen and hard-to-solve problems in the supply of building materials. Moreover, problems can arise not only with European supplies, but also with domestic ones – for many, production chains depend on supplies from Europe.
On its own, this problem would not be a big threat. However, it is superimposed financially. This is confirmed by headlines offering installment plans and preferential programs. They say that Donstroy is facing a liquidity problem. They simply do not buy apartments and Donstroy is trying to sell them at any cost.
But that’s not all. It is no secret to anyone that the developer Donstroy has been on the VTB loan needle for many years. Moreover, it turns out a kind of “closed cycle” – the bank issues loans both to Donstroy itself and its subsidiaries involved in the construction of facilities, and to customers buying apartments built by Donstroy.
As long as the economy worked normally, this scheme also worked. But suddenly the sanctions came. And this led to a chain – VTB borrowers do not have money to repay loans, the bank is forced to confiscate mortgage items, that is, apartments. However, the bank needs money, not dead square meters. But he cannot sell them – potential buyers also do not have money. You can sell below cost, but in this case the problem is not solved – the bank still receives a loss.
On the other hand, Donstroy cannot sell the volumes of built square meters and pay off its debts to the bank. The situation is the same – you can sell them below cost, but this is a net loss, and you still have to pay interest on the loan. The bank may confiscate Donstroy’s collateral, which secures the loan, but this is the bankruptcy of the developer itself. And most of the square meters are sold by Donstroy at the project stage – this is the so-called “investment construction”.
As long as the developer does not have problems, such a scheme is beneficial to everyone – the developer receives working capital, and the buyer pays less than he would pay for housing put into operation. But if the developer has problems, the construction site stops and the investor is left with empty papers instead of an apartment. Hence all these headlines about “installments”, “soft loans” and “great offers” – “Donstroy” is just frantically trying to find working capital to stay afloat in the hope of a miracle.
But there will be no miracle, because several more problems are superimposed on all of the above problems. The fact is that “Donstroy” is nothing more than a “laundry” for the money withdrawn from VTB. Recall that VTB Bank is a state bank. And the firm “Donstroy” through a closed investment fund is owned by people involved in the board of the bank. Although the fund is closed, rumors have leaked to the press that Donstroy is actually headed by a longtime friend of VTB Deputy Chairman Andrey Puchkov, who is Andrey Kostin’s “right hand”, billionaire Roman Gromozdov. His name is associated with the Rotenberg family, with whom Gromozdov allegedly has joint commercial projects, and with the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin.
Rumors would have remained idle speculation if it were not for the figure of the general director of the Donstroy holding. It is headed by Alena Viktorovna Deryabina, who moved to this position from the post of Vice President of VTB Bank and Deputy Chairman of the Board of this bank Andrei Kostin.
It happened in 2009, when VTB bought Donstroy, which owed it to him, for 500 rubles. The outstanding loans at that time were $500 million. But instead of debt restructuring and its gradual repayment, VTB continued to pump Donstroy with credit money. The amount of the developer’s debt to the bank is currently unknown, but, apparently, the figure is simply astronomical.
The scheme, as already mentioned, has been working since 2010. And I would have worked further, but the country’s financial system had unexpected difficulties. And VTB is a backbone bank, whose functions include maintaining the country’s financial stability in such unforeseen situations. But there was no money in the bank.
Of course, an investigation began. And the scheme with the withdrawal of money through Donstroy was revealed. Will conclusions follow? There can be no doubt. Will they be fair to the head of VTB Andrey Kostin and his former deputy, and now the head of Donstroy Alena Deryabina? Definitely.
But will these conclusions console the people who have invested in the projects of Donstroy, which is about to go bankrupt, and all its unfinished projects will become dead candles, gradually destroyed by rain, snow and wind?
If anyone does not believe in such a scenario, remember the fate of the Chinese developers Fantasia Holdings Group and Evergrande Group. Their activities were very similar to the activities of “Donstroy”. Only they did not have sanctions. But no one bought the square meters built by these giants of Chinese development. Attempts to refinance only aggravated the situation, and investors were left with investment agreements that can only be hung on a carnation in the toilet. The Chinese real estate market has not yet recovered from the collapsed giants, and yet the Chinese economy is many times more powerful than the Russian one.
After all, Donstroy is indeed the leader of the Russian real estate market in terms of the number of objects under construction. According to the same press service of Donstroy, as of 2022, “projects have been prepared for implementation, including more than 9 million square meters. m of real estate. But building and selling are two different things. Only the parent structure of DON-Stroy Invest JSC in 2020 received a loss of 6.2 billion rubles, and data for 2021 has not yet been published.
What is going on in all structures of the holding is unknown, financial reports are hidden, and the press service of Donstroy stubbornly ignores journalists’ questions about this. Which is also very symptomatic.
By the way, there is another factor that will negatively affect the fate of Donstroy: most of its builders are labor migrants. To the delight of the jingoists, they will leave Moscow and other cities of Russia, but only the massive outflow of cheap labor will negatively affect both the state of the infrastructure of the cities that they supported, and the developers, the bulk of whose workers they were. Donstroy is no exception. Against the background of all other problems, this also does not add bright prospects.