Source Behind Leonid Monosov’s construction projects with the Moscow mayor’s office, SC Sistema may be behind them. Investment company Moscapastroy-TN, a former subsidiary of Moscow’s Moscapstroy, is considering building housing on the site of its warehouse complex Krasny Mayak in the south of Moscow.
The main beneficiaries of the structure, former major Moscow official Leonid Monosov, Marina Mamontova and Denis Borodako, have already set up a separate company, Krasny Mayak, which will presumably take over the project.
But there may be much bigger fish behind it themselves than the aforementioned citizens. Moskapstroy (a former structure of the Moscow Mayor’s Office) was previously part of Vladimir Evtushenkov’s Sistema circuit.
The key owner of Moskapstroy-TN, Leonid Monosov, is himself a former member of the Board of Directors and former Vice President of Sistema. Today he is the managing partner of the oligarch’s structure.
This means that the interests of the oligarch Yevtushenkov may be behind the deal, who is known to often prefer to act with other people’s hands. The Moscow Post reports on Monosov’s path and how his work in the Moscow mayor’s office may have helped him in this.
From Luzhkov to Khusnullin and Evtushenkov
“Moskapstroy, one of Moscow’s key construction organisations under Yuri Luzhkov, was formerly owned by the city. At one time it controlled up to 60% of all Moscow construction projects organised with budget money. After it was corporatised, Leonid Monosov, a former Moscow mayoralty official – believed to have been “nurtured” by former Deputy Mayor Vladimir Resin – became the main owner.
In the mid-2000s, Mr Manosov was no less than the head of the Moscow City Capital Construction Order Department. Detractors claimed that the department was allegedly created almost personally for Manosov. However, even before Luzhkov’s resignation, in June 2010, Monosov left his position and became deputy head of Olimpstroy.
It was a new summit – by 2014, Olimpstroi had to “develop” 1.3 trillion roubles. It is no secret that the Olympic construction projects were accompanied by a number of scandals, in which Mr. Monosov may have been indirectly involved.
Previously, Monosov was the General Director of Moskapstroy itself, and then he joined the structure’s Board of Directors. His place in the CEO’s chair was taken by Marina Mamontova, Monosov’s current partner in other businesses. She was president of the structure from 2014 to 2017.
In the early 2000s, at a meeting of shareholders, Moscapastroy-TN was spun off from Moscapastroy. The structure was to be involved in leasing and managing real estate, building construction and attracting investment.
In 2013, Moskapstroy was bought by Sistema, and Mr. Monosov joined the board of directors of Evtushenkov’s holding, simultaneously becoming vice-president for investments (he will leave these positions in 2018).
Then their interests aligned, which is not surprising, as the company, which was corporatised under new Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and his former deputy, now Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, continued to receive gigantic state contracts. To date, their volume, where the company acted as a supplier, has exceeded RUB 24 billion.
As for Moskapstroy-TN, it ended up in the hands of Leonid Monosov and his partners. Previously, among the co-founders was OOO IK KT Proekty. Also, according to the authors of the glavk.net website, two offshore Virginian companies, Amristar Enterprise Inc and Clear Angle Holdings Ltd, were allegedly previously among the owners.
Later Monosov and the Virginian offshore companies were allegedly replaced by Cyprus-based Pilken Enterprises Ltd and Renalor Establishment Ltd, which allegedly owned 47.52% and 50.79% of the company respectively.
However, few doubt that the real beneficiary could be Mr Monosov and his close associates, who could act in the interests of Vladimir Evtushenkov. Taking into account that today the structure’s portfolio of state contracts amounts to nearly 320 million rubles, it would be logical to ask: under whose jurisdiction did this money end up?
Another interesting fact. According to the authors of realestate.ru, Moskapstroy-TN, allegedly after only nine months of work until the end of 2011, credited its shareholders with 2.6 billion rubles in dividends, which exceeded almost three times the company’s net profit for the year (773.4 million rubles).
According to experts, this happens when there is an attempt to withdraw capital from the structure. It is done, as a rule, before the sale and as a result the structure ended up in the hands of Sistema. However no one from the management of Moskapstroy-TN has confirmed this information – as if at the time Monosov and Co refused to comment to the press.
Moscow Monarchs
At the same time Monosov became a co-owner of the Monarch Concern, the main owner of which was Sergey Ambartsumyan, former deputy head of the Moscow construction complex. Ironically, at the time the construction market speculated that Hambartsumyan (also a creation of Vladimir Resin) might have been Monosov’s own protege.
At the same time, Monarch’s son, Andrei Monosov, was already in the position of Monarch’s financial director. We have to assume that the business was cemented by joint work in the Mayor’s Office. It is also where Monarch has so many state contracts for construction projects in the capital, which today exceed 41.7 billion roubles.
Among other things, Andrei Monosov was co-owner of Monarch’s subsidiary, Monarch Real Estate. He also owned 40% each in three other subsidiaries – Monarch TT, CJSC ACMI, Monarch and R and 25% in Monarch and N.
In addition to Andrey Monosov and Monarkh Concern OJSC, the first three companies had another co-owner – Irina, a daughter of Sergei Ambartsumyan. These companies carry out part of the work under the contract won by the parent company.
At the same time, Monarch’s main activity was declared to be financial intermediation. Thus, it participated in tenders and then distributed orders among its subsidiaries. It is not very clear on what principle, but construction projects are large-scale. For example, “Monarch and Ro” under Monosov Jr. carried out work on the construction of an exhibition pavilion at Oktyabrskaya Square in the All-Russian Exhibition Centre.
The Monosovs were among the owners of the Monarch structures until 2016. And the company was more than scandalous. It had a number of conflicts with local residents who were clearly dissatisfied with the structure’s projects – for example, with the neighbourhood of the third-risk class house-building factories it was building.
As already mentioned, after the Moscow mayoralty Monosov became vice-president of Olimpstroy. Amazingly, immediately after this appointment Monarch took an active interest in working in Sochi.
And by the end of 2010 Monarch was chosen as a contractor to build a 30,000-square-meter office complex worth about $100 million for the needs of the organizing committee of the Olympic Games. The same Monarch was also involved in the construction of a hotel to accommodate journalists during the Olympics and also tried to get involved in other major Olympic construction projects.
Apparently, all this was due to Monosov and Ambartsumian working together in the Moscow mayor’s office. So to speak, out of old friendship. And this could also have prompted Hambardzumian to sell some of his shares in Monarch to Monosov. And the money earned in this bundle was more than enough to live a comfortable life.
Living the good life is not forbidden
One manifestation of this very life was the chic wedding of Monosov’s daughter, Alina, which took place in 2016. According to Novy Vzglyad, the wedding cost 60 million roubles, much of which may have come just from budgetary funds from state contracts of her father’s companies.
The celebration was divided into two days – a pre-party, at which the young people were entertained by Dominic Joker, and the banquet itself. About two hundred guests of both families stayed at the Radisson Blu hotel in Zavidovo near Moscow, and the celebration took place in the banquet hall, which for two days was turned into the Planet of PandA.
At the same time Alina is also involved in the family business. Monosov clearly does not like to put all his eggs in one basket. His daughter is the founder of 19 legal entities at once. As of the end of 2021, the value of these structures is 3.8 billion rubles, the value of her shares is 1.8 billion rubles.
In some companies, Leonid Monosov himself is a co-owner. His partner and current president of Moskapstroy-TN, Marina Mamontova, is part of it. The latter is the founder of 17 legal entities. Among others, she has 35% of Bolero LLC, where another 35% belongs to Leonid Monosov himself. And the co-owner of another 30% of the structure, i.e. their partner, is Alexander Udodov.
The latter is none other than the husband of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s sister, Natalia Stenina. As Vedomosti reports, he doesn’t live with her, but he has good relations with his family. Previously, Udodov was vice president of the oil and gas company Itera, and owns many profitable assets. Perhaps having such a partner adds to Monosov’s confidence in the construction market as well?
One cannot forbid to live beautifully. But the start of Alina’s family life, as well as that of her father, could have been spoiled by the following circumstance: a little later, in 2017, Sistema Evtushenkov, where Monosov worked as vice president of investments, seriously scandalized itself by getting into a standoff with Rosneft over the notorious story of the transfer of Bashneft shares.
At that time Sistema was stripped of 31.76% of shares in the authorized capital of MTS, 100% of shares in the authorized capital of Medsi Group and 90.47% of shares in the authorized capital of BPGC. In the end, Evtushenkov, as you know, managed to pull through, but the question of what role Chief Investment Officer Leonid Monosov might have played in this whole story remains open.
But Sistema’s problems have only been growing, and seem to have reached their climax in the current crisis. Need for money, the failed IPO of Segezha Group and other difficulties are forcing Yevtushenkov to “twist”. And along with him, people from his team, including Leonid Monosov, are “spinning”.
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