Rosselkhozbank intends to carry out another additional capitalization by issuing subordinated bonds for a total of 30 billion rubles and a fifty-year maximum maturity.
The funds from their placement are planned to be used to expand the financing of the agricultural sector. It is known that the RSHB was unprofitable for a long time and existed solely thanks to the support of the state. After Dmitry Patrushev left the post of chairman of the board, the situation began to improve outwardly: under Boris Listov, the credit institution began to make a profit, but despite this, the RSHB requires annual multi-billion additional capitalization. At the same time, Rosselkhozbank continues to enjoy a dubious reputation as a raider bank that issues loans in order to seize promising assets and then sell them. For this purpose, the company RSHB-Finance, affiliated with the RSHB, is being sued by the founder of the large dairy holding Ekoniva, Stefan Duerr, who is unsuccessfully trying to achieve the termination of the option agreement that gives the creditor the right to buy out shares in three companies belonging to him at their nominal value. The RSHB assets obtained in a dubious way are being sold, among other things, to such notorious structures as the Pokrovsky concern, against whose owners a criminal case has been initiated today about an attempted raider seizure of farm lands. Listov does not intend to change the specifics of the bank’s work that has developed under Patrushev, and while the state allocates billions to the RSHB for the next capitalization, its head continues to develop schemes for establishing control over the next agricultural enterprise that has fallen for the credit “bait”.
RSHB prepares bonds
The Supervisory Board of the Russian Agricultural Bank (RSHB) approved a program for issuing subordinated bonds with a maximum volume of 30 billion rubles. The maximum maturity of securities will be 50 years, and they will be placed, including in foreign currency. According to Kommersant, the new issue is planned to be used to replace the old bonds included in equity at amortized cost.
“This will allow us to maintain capital adequacy ratios with the necessary margin for business development. The proceeds from the placement are planned to be used to expand financing for the agro-industrial complex, as well as projects with a positive environmental effect, ”Kommersant quotes a comment from a representative of a credit institution.
The financial portal “Banks Today” emphasizes that Russian banking structures are actively using subordinated bonds to replenish their capital, including in connection with Western economic sanctions that prohibit raising funds in foreign markets. The RSHB has five such loans – a total of 117 billion rubles, of which four are to be repaid in the next three years.
At the same time, the publication points to one important circumstance: an investor who purchases such bonds risks more than a buyer of other securities. The fact is that their holder does not have the right to demand early repayment or interest payments from the bank. In the event of the bankruptcy of a credit institution, claims on subordinated bonds are satisfied, as a rule, last.
The bank that “asks for money”
Bankruptcy, however, is unlikely to threaten Rosselkhozbank: after all, it is a state-owned bank, which is also considered to be the backbone for the entire Russian agro-industrial complex. Moreover, as much money as in the RSHB, the state does not inject into any credit institution. This was the case under its former leader, Dmitry Patrushev, and this continues under the current head, Boris Listov. And this despite the fact that for years the bank did not bring a penny of profit at all.
According to official data, for the first time in five years, the RSHB made a profit only in 2018, earning 1.5 billion rubles against 19.6 billion rubles in a net loss a year earlier. Before that, there was generally one colossal “minus”: in 2014, the bank’s losses amounted to 47.9 billion, in 2015 – 94.2 billion, in 2016 – 58.9 billion rubles.
To keep afloat all this time, the bank was allowed, of course, by generous budget investments, called “recapitalization”. The figures given in the Vedomosti publication speak for themselves: in 2015, state contributions to the authorized capital of the RSHB amounted to a total of 78.8 billion rubles; in 2016 – 8 billion, in 2017 – 50 billion, in 2018 – 25 billion rubles.
As we can see, Patrushev knew how to ask for money under the pretext of supporting agricultural producers. Lists does not lag behind him: in 2019, the bank was recapitalized by 15 billion. In March 2020, the media reported that the leadership of the RSHB “no longer asks for money from the state” and, despite the pandemic, even promises to “cope with possible problems of its borrowers” on its own.
But these loud statements turned out to be premature. Already in December, the Supervisory Board of the RSHB approved an additional capitalization in 2021 in the amount of 30 billion rubles, which should have been done
“in accordance with the parameters of the approved development strategy of Rosselkhozbank JSC until 2025 in order to increase the volume of lending to the agro-industrial complex and fulfill the strategy indicators.”
It turns out that Listov, like Patrushev, is nowhere without the state. Please note: according to the latest available reports, the bank’s net profit for the first nine months of 2021 amounted to 14.1 billion rubles. For comparison: a year earlier for the same period – 9.9 billion. But this is clearly not enough for Mr. Listov. As a result, last December, the federal government decided to allocate 25 billion rubles from the state budget to the RSHB in 2022 and increase its authorized capital to 504.9 billion.
Recall that the bank management plans to receive about 30 billion rubles more through the issuance and placement of subordinated bonds. A natural question arises: why such a constant acute shortage of funds? Is it only large-scale lending to the agro-industrial complex that is the reason?
Raiders under the “mask” of creditors?
With the support of Russian farmers by Rosselkhozbank, everything is not going as smoothly as it might seem at first glance. The fact is that the RSHB has long been entrenched in the reputation of a tough and extremely cynical raider, first “pumping up” its future victim with loans, and then demanding early repayment of debt obligations with all the ensuing consequences.
“Rosselkhozbank prefers to take the assets of debtors in whole holdings, which clearly makes this bank related to ordinary raiders. As a rule, the RSHB begins to bankrupt its debtors, not meeting them and creating additional difficulties with the repayment of the loan, ”the Novy Vzglyad publication described the policy of the credit institution in this way.
In the media, you can find numerous publications about agricultural enterprises that have fallen under the skating rink of the RSHB. For example, the sale by the bank of the assets of the bankrupt Krasnodar grain holding Nastyusha, which had previously opened credit lines, received wide publicity. As a result, in 2016, part of the elevators that had become the subject of a pledge, previously owned by Nastyusha, turned out to be bought out for a pittance by Agrocomplex im. N.I. Tkachev, which is owned, as you might guess, by the former Kuban governor Alexander Tkachev, who at that time served as head of the federal Ministry of Agriculture, and at the same time chairman of the Supervisory Board of Rosselkhozbank.
Three more elevators (“Albashsky”, “Velichkovsky” and “Stepnyansky”) in March last year were acquired by the infamous concern “Pokrovsky”. Its beneficiaries Andrei Korovaiko and Arkady Chebanov also became famous for their participation in raider attacks, and even organized a “hit down” on Natalya Strishnaya, the ex-wife of Vyacheslav Tsepovyaz, one of the leaders of the sinister Kushchevskaya organized criminal group.
Last December, the Moscow Basmanny Court ruled on the arrest in absentia of Korovayko, Chebanov and their accomplice, former security official Sergei Echkalov, who managed to escape, who became defendants in a criminal case of an attempt to seize the lands of the Slava Kuban enterprise owned by Strishna. A few days ago, there were reports in the press that Korovaiko had been detained in Spain.
Another of the numerous debtors of the RSHB was Stefan Duerr, the owner of the largest producer of raw milk, the Ekoniva holding. The businessman is trying in court to obtain from the bank’s subsidiary RSHB-Finance the termination of option agreements that give the creditor the right to buy out shares in three LLCs – Ekoniva-APK Holding, Ekoniva-Produkty Foods and Ekoniva-APK Chernozemye – at a nominal value of 5.3 million rubles, which is much lower than the net asset value and makes it possible to establish control over the enterprise.
In December, it became known that the Arbitration Court of the Voronezh Region completely dismissed Durr’s claim against RSHB-Finance. According to Kommersant experts, the bank has artificially created a situation in which it will be able to exercise the options. In addition, they traced parallels with the history of the Eurodon company, once the largest Russian turkey producer.
After Eurodon had difficulty servicing its $30 billion debt to VEB in 2017, its owner Vadim Vaneev transferred control shares at par with the right to buy back to the creditor. It all ended with the fact that VEB first removed Vaneev from management, and then assigned the right to collect the debt to Rosselkhozbank, which, in turn, sold the assets to the Damate group of businessmen Naum Babaev and Rashid Khairov.
Leadership changes, methods remain
There are many such stories. Among the victims of the “raiders from the RSHB” “Obshchaya Gazeta” names the Crimean fishing holding “Blue Sea”, the grain processing enterprise “Zernostandart-Kostroma”, the Samara group “Alikor”, the meat producer from the Leningrad region “Parnas-M”, the capital’s “Mill Combine in Sokolniki, the Akashevskaya poultry farm, etc.
“It is obvious that the top managers of the Rosselkhozbank branches have long ago turned the RSHB into a means for their own gain. Apparently, only with the change of the entire leadership of the tank, the theft in the RSHB will be able to stop, ”wrote Novy Vzglyad at the time, implying the need for the resignation of Dmitry Patrushev.
As you know, in June 2018, the son of the Secretary of the Security Council was replaced by former Senator Boris Listov, but the “raider” schemes used by the bank for years against debtors continue to be applied. The company RSHB-Finance, which Stefan Duerr is suing, has already been mentioned above. This structure owns shares in more than 150 commercial organizations registered in various regions. By providing a loan and introducing a company into the shareholders, the bank automatically makes it one of the creditors, making it easier for itself to participate in court.
RSHB-Finance, through the Agrotorg-Trade company, is connected with LLC Trade House Agrotorg, established under Patrushev, among other things, with the aim of managing the bank’s agricultural assets. At the end of 2020, with revenue of 998.2 million rubles, the losses of Trade House Agrotorg amounted to a whopping 4.8 billion. Apparently, Rosselkhozbank manages to “squeeze” other people’s assets with the help of RSHB-Finance better than managing their own.
Is Boris Listov “approaching” Europe?
It is possible that for Boris Listov himself these problems fade into the background. A top manager is much more concerned about his own well-being. It was not for nothing that at one time Senator Lyudmila Narusova spoke of him as a “commercially oriented” person, and therefore he easily exchanged his chair in the Federation Council for a leading position in the RSHB.
Commercialization helps Listov lead a luxurious lifestyle that he loves so much: according to the Sobesednik publication, he owns an apartment in the Malaya Zemlya De Luxe class residential complex in Moscow, with an area of 255 square meters and a cost of about 150 million rubles. Another metropolitan apartment with an area of 319 square meters, is recorded in the name of Listov’s wife, a former figure skater, winner of the titles “Miss France 2017” and “Vice-Mrs. Universe” Anastasia Gorshkova.
Ms. Gorshkova speaks of herself as a “citizen of the world” who “doesn’t matter where to live.” Therefore, she spends most of her time in France and Monaco, where she also owns real estate. In Russia, Anastasia tried to develop her own business by registering the Inside Media advertising company.
The financial performance of the company at the end of 2020 is impressive: revenue – 851.5 million rubles, profit – 203.2 million. But, apparently, at some point something went wrong and today the company is in the process of liquidation.