Close to the structures of VTB Andrey Kostin, Donstroy is getting closer to the threshold of bankruptcy. Hundreds of equity holders are at risk of remaining on the street, and the state bank may lose a decent amount.
It is reported that next to the Heart of the Capital residential complex being built by the SK Donstroy company, a poisonous acid-colored liquid was poured into the Moscow River.
There are no comments yet from the builder. It is assumed that he can shift the blame for what happened to the company serving the house. Interestingly, it is true that she is also affiliated with the developer.
The Moscow Post previously wrote that the company may not be able to cope with the debt load.
The scandalous company was highlighted in a mass of environmental incidents, causes criticism in terms of the timing of delivery and the quality of construction of facilities, and figured in the story of the sale of land to Roskosmos.
Scandal with Roskosmos
A subsidiary of Donstroy, SZ Makeevka, was registered at the end of 2021 at the address Moscow, st. Sergei Makeev 7. The same is the asset of the Center for the Operation of Ground-Based Space Infrastructure Objects of Roskosmos (TsENKI) of KB Motor. Moreover, after that, information began to diverge on the Web that an LCD was planned at this place. They were already ready to sell apartments.
Removed page with data on the sale of apartments in the residential complex on Makeevka
Interest in this land, according to a number of unofficial sources, was allegedly shown by the structure of the PIK corporation Sergey Gordeev. Interestingly, its shares are in the portfolio of VTB Bank. But it is precisely with the interests of its head Andrei Kostin that the scandalous “Donstroy” is associated.
According to rumors, the head of Donstroy is actually a longtime friend of VTB Deputy Chairman Andrey Puchkov, who is the “right hand” of Andrey Kostin, billionaire Roman Gromozdov. His name is associated both with the Rotenberg family, with whom Gromozdov allegedly has joint commercial projects, and with the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, so that the “roof” of Donstroy can be very good – this is evidenced by the very fact of the existence of the organization, despite on multi-million dollar debts and ongoing scandals.
The connection with VTB is also indicated by the fact that in 2010, Alena Deryabina, the former vice-president of the bank, became the director of the affiliated company Donstroy Invest. The official website of the company indicates that VTB is its partner. That is, he invests public money in the development of the company.
The impact on the structure of VTB is obvious – many of Donstroy’s subsidiaries are pledged to the bank. Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru
It turns out that they planned to simply “merge” state land, also under a strategically important enterprise, to Kostin’s structures?
According to rumors, Donstroy began to show interest in the Roskosmos site in 2019 – allegedly the developer then ordered its assessment.
After many media outlets wrote about what was happening, the Donstroy company was re-registered in a matter of days in a basement at 70 Mosfilmovskaya Street, underground floor. 106 and erased all mention of the previous address.
And the head of TsENKI Andrey Okhlopkov Dmitry Rogozin (the former head of Roskosmos) fired after this story – the truth was voiced for a different reason: theft on space debris cleaning contracts. Interfax wrote about it.
In fact, no one was held responsible for the fact that state land almost fell into the hands of merchants.
How “Donstroy” gets away with everything
Not so egregious, but no less revealing story happened with the unauthorized construction of “Donstroy” and the famous singer Natalia Poryvai (known under the pseudonym Natasha Koroleva).
On Mosfilmovskaya Street, they demanded to demolish a building that is not on the cadastral register and is located in the “red lines”. Only here, for some reason, the court suddenly sided with the developer, substantiating its decision by the fact that, although a number of violations were made during the construction of the facility, it does not threaten the life and health of citizens, and, therefore, let it stand.
Another strange decision of the court to refuse claims to the Moscow Depimuschestvo. “Donstroy” got the object of the city power grid, bought from “Pixel-Trading”. Photo: archive The Moscow post
Not a bell but a bell
Donstroy has been on the verge of bankruptcy for several years now. Back in 2017, Business Vector published a report on the financial position of Donstroy, which states that the company, in fact, cannot even pay for itself, let alone develop development projects. Vedomosti wrote about it. After a short time, the lines about the “crisis-unstable” position of the company and its possible upcoming bankruptcy disappeared from the report – apparently, someone serious intimidated.
The company is listed as a defendant in 111 cases totaling 1.8 billion rubles. Currently, nine cases of economic disputes are being considered. Arguing with the structure and its own subsidiaries – apparently this is such a simple way to keep money in the company, if you can squeeze out other creditors.
The developer is not distinguished by cleanliness and when executing transactions with equity holders of their residential complexes – people who purchase square meters in very expensive new buildings observe falling elevators (in 2017, a woman died in the Scarlet Sails residential complex of the Donstroy company due to the fall of the elevator – about this wrote Lenta.ru), leaking windows, problems with rats.
Sometimes they wait for their keys for almost decades from the date of the expected date of delivery of apartments. Such a story happened in the 2010s with the residential complex “House on Begovaya”. Angry people literally stormed VTB offices to find out what was going on.
Donstroy does not shy away from building in protected areas – despite all the protests of the public. The mnemonic floodplain in Moscow was built up with the “Ostrov”. So far, it has been possible to cope with Donstroy in the territories of the Pogodinskaya quarter, which the developer was going to demolish – Versiya wrote about this. But who knows – maybe it’s just the calm before the storm?
In 2017, the bank could transfer several plots of land to a certain office called Hals-Development, with which it then paid off creditors. Vedomosti wrote about it. In whose interests does Kostin work?
Are “Donstroy” and the same “Hals-Development” a giant “trough” for Mr. Kostin and his colleagues?
Not Kostin alone
There is such a firm – KL-Invest. It is associated with VTB, since one of the co-owners is Arkady Ilyaguev, a former member of the board of directors of the Moscow Metallurgical Plant Sickle and Hammer, whose shareholders included the Bank of Moscow, whose accession to VTB was completed in May 2016. In 2017, she received the rights to manage the Moscow Real Estate fund, which was previously in the KSP Capital portfolio of Sergey Kotlyarenko, asset manager of the head of VEB.RF Igor Shuvalov.
In the same Moscow Real Estate, at that time, there were shares of three companies – ZAO Perspektiva, ZAO Invest-aktiv and ZAO Finansproekt, which, according to Vedomosti, jointly own 100% of ZAO Don- build invest.
Does this mean that in addition to Kostin, Mr. Shuvalov also has his own interests in the Donstroy projects?
As for Roman Gromozdov’s connection with Igor Sechin, in 2018, according to Vedomosti, the bankrupt company of the founder, who has now left the founders of Donstroy, Maxim Blazhko, River Tower, was interested in the offshore Cypriot company Riverstretch, potentially affiliated with Sechin Trading & Investments. By the way, 4 years have passed since then, but the River Tower has not completely gone bankrupt. Doesn’t it remind you of anything?
Sechin’s connection with Donstroy is indicated by the fact that Rosneft’s footprint can be traced in the latter’s business empire. There is such a company – KL Development. This structure passed several times from Donstroy to other firms and back. The last time the owner of the company changed at the end of December last year – it became LLC SZ “Department of Finstroy and Partners”. It, in turn, is owned by SZ Otdelfinstroy LLC and JSC SZ KSK Group. The holder of the register of shareholders of the latter is REESTR-RN LLC, a 100% subsidiary of Rosneft. And Sechin in share?
While Donstroy is building up protected areas, buying up land and trying to turn around not entirely transparent deals with Roskosmos, the question continues to grow – when will this entire “empire of sand and clay” collapse and will someone be punished for this?
