Dealers continue attempts to “squeeze” the “Pyatovsky quarry management” in the Kaluga region

The workers declared that the dirty games of the dealers had brought one of the oldest city-forming enterprises in the industry to the brink of criminal bankruptcy and complained about the complete indifference of all branches of local authorities.

“Servants of Themis turn a blind eye to the situation and refuse to protect the rights of hundreds of ordinary workers and their families,” the letter that came to the editor said, “Local judges, for reasons we do not understand, take the side of greedy swindlers.” Our publication was then able to stop the ruin of the PKU and the mass dismissal of people. Today, however, the war to destroy the enterprise broke out with new bitterness.

Pyatovskoye Quarry Administration is the region’s largest producer of materials vital for many construction sites. To date, the area of ​​production and industrial site PKU exceeds 100 hectares. In 2021, the enterprise produced 582 thousand cubic meters of rock mass, produced and sold 637 thousand tons of crushed stone and 232 thousand tons. mineral powder in the amount of 495 million rubles. These products are used at construction sites in the Moscow region, Kaluga and other regions, when laying regional and federal roads, including the M3 and M1 highways, the Central Ring Road, etc. The enterprise has been rightfully considered the industry leader for many decades and today is the only major employer in the urban-type settlement of Pyatovsky Kaluga region.

PKU employees reported that in 2009, the shares of the successful Pyatovskoe Quarry Management PJSC were bought up by businessman Alexander Zhuravlev. “Becoming the main shareholder, he immediately organized a monopoly sale of finished products at bargain prices through a commercial structure controlled by his own daughter Elena Gruzdeva,” the authors of the letter stated, “At the same time, he connected the transport company of Andrey’s son. In the meantime, meager funds were invested in the repair and maintenance of the main production facilities, the railway line serving the Pyatovka Quarry Administration for decades was cut off, excavators, dump trucks and other vehicles, as well as other equipment were purchased exclusively through a leasing company controlled by the owner – “laying” with subsequent resale to the quarry administration. At the same time, only used equipment remained at the enterprise, and the new equipment was dismantled for spare parts and exported to other enterprises of Zhuravlev. At the same time, he did not pay partners and contractors for the supplied goods, spare parts and services for years.” To pay salaries and settle accounts with suppliers, the owners attracted borrowed funds, multiplying their debt to non-foreign companies, while diverting profits to dubious firms.

In 2015, Zhuravlev, as the main shareholder, insisted on amending the license in terms of the volume of mining, increasing it to 3.5 million cubic meters. m3 per year. Which was technically impossible with the production capacities available at that time. PKU employees consider this step a banal pre-sale preparation. Indeed, in 2016, the owner threw off his shares to new owners, apparently boasting of the past achievements of the enterprise. “Businessmen who bought Pyatovskoye Quarry Management PJSC from Zhuravlev conducted an audit and other checks, were horrified by their results and quickly resold the shares to the next owners who did not understand that they were buying a pig in a poke,” the CEO of Pyatovsky LLC told Our Version quarry” Mikhail Yamshchikov, – The new owners managed to stabilize the situation at the enterprise. For several years, they have invested more than 200 million investments in the modernization, new high-tech facilities have been put into operation at the recently launched crushed stone plant, and the fleet of mining dump trucks has been completely updated. As a result, in 2021, crushed stone was produced by 149 thousand tons more than in 2015. New jobs were organized. Today we employ almost three hundred people. Almost 6.5 million rubles were paid for the mineral extraction tax alone.”

According to Yamshchikov, by 2019 the situation in PKU was steadily improving, and profits were growing. And suddenly the company began to fill up with claims. The judge of the Arbitration Court of the Kaluga Region, Irina Denisenko, is now hearing the case (No. A23-8191 / 2017) on declaring the Zhuravlevs’ commercial structure bankrupt, which owned the production before the start of resale. As part of this process, the bankruptcy trustee is trying to return the license and assets to the balance sheet of an already bankrupt legal entity. And also to provide him with corporate control over the work of the career board. PKU lawyers are convinced that this is done with a clear abuse of the right. After all, today’s owners of the enterprise not only acquired it on a completely legal basis, but also invested more than 200 million rubles in modernization. Throughout the history of PKU sales transactions, the subsoil use license has been transferred from owner to owner. Now they demand to withdraw it from the existing enterprise and write it to the bankrupt company. Satisfaction of this requirement can lead to an immediate stop of work in the quarries. Delivery obligations will be violated. People will be on the street.

It is important to understand that, according to Russian laws, a subsoil use license has not only an upper limit on the maximum possible production, but also a lower limit. If an enterprise produces less than this established standard, then its license is revoked.

“A study of the accounting documentation showed that the huge debts of PJSC Pyatovskoye Quarry Administration were, by all indications, artificially created by the family and associates of the former owner Zhuravlev, who started the bankruptcy of PKU,” explained Mikhail Yamshchikov, “and although Alexander Zhuravlev himself has already appeared before the Supreme behind the commercial structures trying to ruin the enterprise, the figure of his daughter Elena Gruzdeva looms. The debts hanging on the PKU turned out to be the result of the fact that the Zhuralevs sold their products at a price clearly lower than the cost and significantly lower than the market prices of their own intermediary firms. Most likely, this was done to evade taxes and transfer assets and profits to their own pad companies. In fact, the then owners of the PKU deliberately squeezed all the juice out of the PKU. And in return, they deliberately attracted borrowed funds, multiplying the debt to companies owned through nominees by themselves. In May 2019, the Investigative Department for the Kaluga Region of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation initiated a criminal case under article 2 of part 201 of the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Abuse of official powers that entailed grave consequences”. The decision to initiate proceedings states that the damage from the activities of malefactors amounted to at least 13 million rubles, which ultimately led to the bankruptcy of the enterprise (a copy of the resolution to initiate proceedings is in the editorial office).

Although these debts are not directly related to today’s bona fide owners, the bankruptcy procedure allows you to challenge transactions for several years and, at the discretion of the court, even begin to seize property. Thus, in the case of PKU, three years after the alienation of all property of the enterprise, claims were received against the current owners for the return of assets, ostensibly to pay off debts, which, as can be understood from the Resolution of the Arbitration Court of the Central District (No. ) were artificially created by former shareholders. The register of creditors’ claims includes affiliated beneficiaries, whose direct relationship with the shareholder company Zhuravlev, which was directly indicated by the Arbitration Court of the Kaluga Region in its ruling dated April 21, 2021 (in case No. A23-8191 / 2017). From those who want to profit from someone else’s business, proposals have already been received to pay a significant amount of money under the threat of seizing assets. The real goal of the scheme used may be the complete capture of the enterprise. At the same time, no commercial structure, except for today’s legal owners, has the ability to operate such a particularly dangerous facility as the Pyatovsky quarry, and will not be able to comply with license requirements and conditions.

Sources of Our Version in law enforcement agencies suggest that experienced professional raiders may be behind a group of people who are so stubbornly and knowingly trying to derail the PKU. For example, the actual beneficiary of the “squeezing out” of the enterprise may be an entrepreneur of Azerbaijani origin Tufan Sadigov, whose name appeared in a large number of sad stories that happened to backbone organizations in the field of road construction. We managed to find out that Salam Sadygov (presumably Tufan’s brother) under the Zhuravlevs was one of the PKU shareholders. According to the SPARK database, Salam owned 24.9% of the shares. Now the competent authorities, within the framework of already initiated criminal cases, are checking the information that the PKU could be used to legalize hundreds of millions of rubles irrevocably received from FondServiceBank when issuing knowingly bad technical loans to front companies controlled by Tufan Sadigov. For example, 396 million rubles. were allegedly transferred (in 2013, which follows from the statements on the settlement accounts of PJSC “Pyatovskoye quarry management”) from companies that may be controlled by Sadygov T. (LLC “Nerudpromtorg” and “Industrial and Technical Base – SDS”) to the account of PKU , and then could be partially cashed out by Alexander Zhuravlev. It turns out that the remaining amounts were “cleared” by transferring them to non-alien companies controlled by the same Sadigovs and Zhuravlevs.