Creditors’ claims against Leonid Reiman are growing, but will rescue options help?

The Angstrem group of its former owner and former communications minister Leonid Reiman may come under the control of the Tatarstan authorities.

According to the correspondent The Moscow Post, February 16, 2022 The Sixth Arbitration Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Moscow Arbitration Court to recover more than 1.5 billion rubles from JSC Angstrem, owned by the former Minister of Information Technologies and Communications of the Russian Federation Leonid Reiman. The funds were recovered in favor of Tatneft-controlled ZENIT bank.

In turn, Tatneft is controlled by the Republic of Tatarstan. Thus, Reiman’s bankrupt business may well become the property of the Tatarstan elites. The only question is how decisive the bankers will be: will they decide the issue amicably or will they drive Reiman to the scrip and prison.

Will go under the hammer

Leonid Reiman worked for the state for a long time. In 1999, that is, at the very beginning of his career as an official, he was for a short time the chairman of the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Telecommunications. From 1999 to 2004 he was the Minister of Communications and Informatization, and from 2004 to 2008. – Minister of Information Technology and Communications. From 2008 to 2010 Leonid Reiman was an adviser to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. After his retirement, he decided to go into business.

The main former business asset of Leonid Reiman can be called the Angstrem Group, which is engaged in the production of microelectronics. At one time, Leonid Reiman owned Angstrem JSC through offshore companies and other companies, reports The Moscow Post. Litigation initiated by the bank “ZENITH”clearly demonstrates: the history of “Angstrem” under the control of Reiman ends ingloriously.

Photo: TASS

During the litigation, the facts of how in 2013 the Angstrem company entered into an agreement with the ZENIT Bank to open a credit line were revealed. Another similar agreement was concluded in 2015. And in 2019, Angstrem, having collected loans, stopped paying on them. As a result, the total amount of debt (including the body of the loan, interest, including overdue) exceeded 1.5 billion rubles.

Bank “ZENIT” exercised its right to return the debt and went to court. We already know the result: the Moscow Arbitration Court and the Sixth Arbitration Court of Appeal agreed with the bankers’ arguments. To pay off this debt, the court allowed the sale of Angstrem’s property pledged when opening credit lines. Thus, Angstrem’s property in circulation should be put up for auction: raw materials and semi-finished products for the production of electronic microtechnology, as well as equipment for the design, development, production of electronic equipment.

Real estate will also be sold – for example, this is a complex of buildings located in Zelenograd (part of Moscow), where the AI ​​Shokin Center for Microelectronics is located. In fact, this is the main production site of the Angstrem company.

The sale of Angstrem’s main assets will obviously make the company’s production activities impossible. However, it cannot be ruled out that this property will be acquired by persons friendly to Leonid Reiman at the auction. This will allow to close the issue with the ZENIT Bank, perhaps not even more favorable than the return of loans on terms, and at the same time to protect property from encroachment by third parties.

Leonid Reiman  depending on Tatarstan

At the same time, if ZENIT Bank is persistent, the situation can be considered in the criminal plane as well. For example, in terms of deliberately bringing the Angstrem Group to bankruptcy. Moreover, as reported “Kommersant”ZENIT bank became the pledge holder of 51% of Angstrem’s shares as being under control “Tatneft”. At the same time, Alternativa Capital LLC, which also belonged to Reiman, also claimed part of the pledge, but the court dismissed this company’s claim for inclusion in the register of creditors of the bankrupt Kontraktfinansgroup JSC, 51% of which is located in Angstrem and is pledged to Bank Zenith.

Obviously, in the case of the ZENIT Bank, the Angstrem Group is unlikely to be able to resolve the situation in the same way as in the case of VEB.RF. The Moscow Post I already told you how, back in 2008, Vnesheconombank (now the VEB.RF state corporation) opened a credit line for Angstrem for 815 million euros to buy the European plant AMD, one of the world’s largest chip manufacturers. But the crisis struck, and the credit line was frozen.

In the spring of 2011, Leonid Reiman declared himself a shareholder in one of the structures of Angstrem, after which VEB.RF, which is currently chaired by Igor Shuvalov, unfrozen financing. Over time, the money received from Vnesheconombank could not be recaptured, so in 2018 VEB converted the debt into authorized capital and acquired all the shares of the Zelenograd production of Angstrem-T.

And a year later, the plant was declared bankrupt. However, taking into account the fact that this enterprise is strategically important for the country’s military-industrial complex, it was decided to improve it. For these purposes, Igor Shuvalov planned to “pour” 21 billion rubles from the federal budget into the plant, wrote RBC.

However, later conversations and other attempts at recovery subsided. As reported “Kommersant”in January 2020, VEB.RF filed a lawsuit for 90 billion rubles against Angstrem JSC, since it acted as a guarantor for a loan from Angstrem-T.

It is possible that the recovery of problematic production will now be occupied by ZENIT Bank, which, through Tatneft, can be controlled Republic of Tatarstan.

However, it is still a big question whether Tatarstan will want to invest in the production of microelectronics. Such issues are resolved at the very top.

How much rope does not twist …

As for Leonid Reiman personally, in recent years he has not really tried to prevent his business, which was positioned almost as a Russian “microelectronic miracle”, from going downhill. Yes, back in 2019. The Moscow Post told how Reiman announced the sale of OAO MTT.

Angstrem Group LLC, which Reiman personally owned at the time of liquidation, ended its existence with a negative value of 4.6 billion rubles.

April 2021 The Moscow Post it became known that Logika LLC, whose beneficiary was also Reiman, received a bankruptcy claim. The lawsuit was filed by IFTS No. 35 in Moscow.

And against this background, Reiman finds the strength to come up with new “projects”, for which, under the sauce of exceptional importance for the state, it is theoretically possible to collect new loans. For example, in November 2020 The Moscow Post reported how Reiman decided to invest 1 billion rubles in the Rutek company, which supposedly should start producing telecommunications equipment, computers, video surveillance systems, security, data storage, and so on.

“Kommersant” in November 2020, he informed that Angstrem could be considered by the state as a platform for localizing the production of domestic Baikal processors. They require production using 28 nm technology, and Angstrem previously planned to reach it by 2026-2027. But “planned” does not mean that he will do it. Especially against the backdrop of attacks from creditors.