Co-owners of TechnoNIKOL covered themselves with sanctions

There was also his partner in TechnoNIKOL, billionaire Sergey Kolesnikov. The latter talks about the problems of business, criticizing the position of the government of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation in relation to entrepreneurs.

Sanctions in Poland

The inclusion of Rybakov and Kolesnikov on the sanctions list was explained by the Polish authorities as a Russian “special operation” in Ukraine. Polish structures of their company TechnoNIKOL also got into it. Both businessmen are on the Forbes list, each is worth $1.4 billion.

The Polish authorities explained their decision by the fact that Russian businessmen operate “in key sectors of the economy, in particular, those related to oil refining.” The Polish Foreign Ministry pointed out that this is a significant source of income for the Russian authorities, and thus businessmen “are indirectly responsible for the material or financial support of activities that threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.”

Polish sanctions mean freezing the Polish assets of billionaires. We are also talking about Boerner Service, Boerner Insulation and Boerner Synthetics Membranes (formerly Tekhnonikol, Tekhnonikol-Insulation and Tekhnonikol-PVC Membranes, respectively). They, in particular, will be prohibited from participating in public procurement. Rybakov and Kolesnikov are included in the list of foreigners whose stay in Poland is undesirable, Forbes clarifies.
The source recalls that the TechnoNIKOL company, which specializes in the production of roofing and insulating materials, was included in the ninth package of EU sanctions in 2022.

In 2019, Rybakov and Kolesnikov reorganized their joint business, dividing the parent company and two-thirds of TechnoNIKOL’s European factories and transferring them to a new structure – TN Int.

The company’s revenue in 2022 amounted to 179 billion rubles, of which 28 billion came from European assets. In early May, Rybakov, in an interview with Forbes, said that after the imposition of sanctions against TechnoNIKOL, the company’s exports to Europe are “virtually now at zero”, despite the fact that its share used to be about 20-30% of revenue.

Kolesnikov about the Cabinet and business in Russia

Recently, Igor Rybakov often comments on what is happening in the country and the world on his YouTube channel. Sergey Kolesnikov joined him in a recent issue. In particular, he believes that the phrase of Oleg Tinkov, who called entrepreneurs cowards, “this is his fear, this is his reaction to current events, the way he sees the world.”

He also stated that the profession of an entrepreneur in Russia is not popular – they want to be only 5-10%, unlike in Europe, the USA and Latin America.

– For some reason, society considers entrepreneurship to be very dangerous. This is associated with risk: a financially unprofitable profession. With cheating. Well, plus the politicians themselves speak out on television, they say that entrepreneurs are such half-finished crooks … Also, they speak quite negatively about entrepreneurs in the film industry. Naturally, there is an opinion that business is not prestigious, – said Kolesnikov.
He also drew attention to low unemployment, very low birth rates and migration rates. According to him, the population of Russia is decreasing at a rate of approximately 400-500 thousand people a year, which means a struggle for personnel and an increase in wages. According to Kolesnikov, starting this year, consumer demand will be one of the drivers of the economy.

He stated that Russian business has a huge potential, but criticized the Russian Ministry of Finance for not believing in the Russian government, accumulating money, “which they then lose anyway.” The Cabinet of Ministers got it because he does not believe in Russian business, but at the same time he “with pleasure invests in foreign securities, actually financing foreign business.”

Mr. Kolesnikov sees the development of business in a change in the social contract: for the last 20 years, business has been in a subordinate state, which suits everyone, but the entrepreneur must become the central person.

– I don’t want to call businessmen to be heroes. Heroism is the other side of slovenliness. I urge people to be reasonable and behave in every economic situation reasonably. Take what the system allows you to do. Not to be pessimists, but I would not advise business to run ahead of the locomotive. We will not change the world, it is what it is. I try to just be happy in this world, not trying to remake it, – Kolesnikov emphasized.

“TechnoNIKOL” stuck in polypropylene

Speaking about his business, the billionaire said that he and his partner are now “looking for businesses to buy in Turkey with interest”, and are also thinking about building new enterprises in India and Egypt, without giving up on Europe. Although Kolesnikov immediately says that, unlike Russia, the roofing business in the European Union “shows a decline.”

He stated that due to the departure of many foreign companies, a huge number of niches have formed on the market that will be filled. In particular, the billionaires now “began boldly investing in woodworking, also in the processing of secondary polymers and launching the production of polypropylene.” It is expected that polyester production will find its market in the field of road construction, especially since infrastructural construction in Russia is now going “very good pace.”

– We are currently negotiating with two companies to purchase them and, in general, we think that in every large city we could have a center for the processing of secondary polymers, and each city can give us 40-50 thousand tons of secondary polymers. … In Japan, 94% of all plastics are recycled, and in Russia only 6%, – the entrepreneur also said.
According to Sergei Kolesnikov, the billionaires intend to invest in production about 12-15 billion rubles annually for 5 years. This will be about 7% of revenue.

Near Saratov, TechnoNIKOL is building a plant for the production of soft bituminous tiles and facade tiles. The company planned to launch it as early as the middle of last year. As TechnoNIKOL-Building Systems LLC reported at the beginning of last year, its construction is entering the finish line, and by the end of the year it is planned to produce about 3 million square meters. m. of finished products. The enterprise should reach full capacity in 2023, producing up to 8 million square meters. m. of products.

However, there is still no information about the launch of the plant near Saratov. Recall that the enterprise should appear on the site of the former factory for the production of shingles. RBP JSC went bankrupt, and insiders did not exclude that TechnoNIKOL could be the beneficiary of this procedure. After the sale of property – equipment, workshops and land plots – it turned out that they were acquired in favor of this group of companies.