The Russian investment group Insight has acquired John Deere Financial, the Russian leasing subsidiary of American agricultural equipment manufacturer John Deere.
Behind the deal, as well as behind the Insight group itself, the main owner of which is businessman Avet Mirakyan, there may be oligarchic interests. Mirkaryan himself is closely associated with the Safmar Group of Mikhail Gutseriev, and his new partner Alexei Komar previously worked in the assets of Sovcombank of the controversial brothers Dmitry and Sergey Khotimsky.
Details – in the material of the correspondent of The Moscow Post.
John Deere Financial is a serious asset in the market, the company’s leasing portfolio is almost 32 billion rubles. At the same time, earlier, in 2022, Insight acquired another major asset – a subsidiary of Siemens – Siemens Finance, which smoothly turned into Deltalizing.
All this was accompanied by two issues of bonds “Insight” – in the amount of 53 and 11 billion rubles. Those. The group obviously has money. At the same time, the main legal entity, Insight Investment Group LLC, resembles a fictitious one-day office.
The office has only 12.5 thousand rubles of authorized capital, the only employee in the state and empty financial indicators. The office itself has the status of a micro-enterprise – and this is a group that manages billions in assets.
Apparently the only employee is the general director of the group Avet Mirakyan himself, who is also the owner of 80% of the group’s shares. Another 20% used to belong to his partner Andrey Rassamakin. In August 2022, Rassamakin sold his share to a whole set of new owners, each of whom received 4% – these are Artem Astanin, Alexey Komar, David Poghosyan, Anton Barsht and the current managing director of the group, Mikhail Gonopolsky.
Mirakyan himself may represent the interests of the oligarchic Gutseriev family. From 2016 to 2021, i.e. already during the period of Insight’s ownership, Avet Mirakyan was the general director of the Safmar Group, the main legal entity of the Gutseriev empire. It is directly 100% owned by Mikhail Safarbekovich.
Mirakyan was also the general director of Safmar – Financial Investments, which since 2021 began to bear the name SFI (PJSC Esafai). This asset should also be associated with the Gutserievs. Moreover, Mirakyan was the CEO of SFI from 2017 to 2022, and at the end of 2021, the company received a net loss of 4 billion rubles – 1.7 billion less than a year earlier.
Where the profit went is a separate question. Until September 2021, the owner of SFI was the Cypriot offshore company Steplio Enterprises Limited, which may well turn out to be one of those belonging to the Gutseriev family. Considering that their business is already utterly over-credited, the money could be tritely withdrawn from the care of the Russian state.
Gutseriev’s man
It is difficult for Gutseriev and his inner circle to act with their own hands. They are under cross-sanctions from Western countries, like many of their assets. Therefore, in the case of the purchase of John Deere Financial by Insight, it would be much more profitable through its former top manager Mirakyan.
At the same time, Gutseriev is taking steps to bring his business out of harm’s way. Back in the summer of 2021, when the oligarch was already under sanctions, he left the post of head of the board of directors of Russneft, his key oil asset.
Shortly before that, in the spring of the same year, that Safmar Financial Investments led by Mirakyan transferred almost all of its stake in Russneft to a subsidiary – another Cyprus offshore offshore Weridge Investments Limited, which is 100% a subsidiary of Safmar itself. Vedomosti wrote about it.
Thus, trying to hide from the eyes of the sanctioners, Mr. Gutseriev could quietly transfer his assets abroad. And this was done, it seems, by the hands of Avet Mirakyan.
At the same time, RussNeft, like other companies associated with Gutseriev, continues to quietly receive government contracts. The latter had them worth almost 14 billion rubles. Where does this money go?
If part of the taxes from “RussNeft” settles in Cyprus, then it is worth asking Mikhail Gutseriev a question – maybe they should have been sent to pay off the huge debts of the Safmar Group? Two years ago, their total volume was about $15 billion at the old rate, or about 1 trillion rubles.
A significant part of these funds are loans from state banks issued for the development of the business of the Gutserievs. And the head of the business empire himself literally twists like a snake in a frying pan so as not to pay them on time.
With great difficulty, he managed to agree on a restructuring of 170 billion rubles with Sberbank, which the Afipsky refinery owned by the Gutserievs owed. Back in 2019, he agreed on the restructuring of 135 billion rubles with Otkritie and Trust.
Let us recall that these structures were given the right to claim for the debts of the collapsed “Binbank”, which Gutseriev led along with his nephew Mikail Shishkhanov. Recall that the bank was reorganized by the Central Bank, while a financial hole of as much as 600 billion rubles was discovered in it. Ura.ru writes about it.
It is surprising that Mikhail Gutseriev and his nephew Mikail Shishkhanov were not prosecuted. The latter then assured that he did not take a penny from the money, and that he would no longer be engaged in the banking business.
A piece of the pie for the Khotimskys
Now “John Deere Financial” could also be in the Gutserievs’ circuit. But they are not the only big players who could be behind the deal. One of the new co-owners of Insight, Aleksey Komar, may represent the interests of the owners of Sovcombank, Dmitry and Sergey Khotimsky.
Since 2020, he has been and remains the CEO of UPT LLC, which is engaged in software development. Now the company is 75% owned by the Armenian offshore Idram LLC, another 25% is owned by Felix Khachatryan. But until June 2022, 12.5% of the company belonged to Sovcombank, and the shares of the offshore Idram were pledged – apparently, from the same bank.
At the same time, UPT LLC also looks like a fictitious office. It was formed only on April 6, 2020. On the same day, Aleksey Komar became its general director. At the end of 2021, the company did not receive a penny of revenue, but increased its loss by 32 million rubles. Could the money end up in Armenia?
Earlier, Komar acted as the founder and led another organization – LLC “ROSTR”, which is not clear what it was doing in the field of architecture. Unclear because a company with zero employees was liquidated with missing revenue and profits.
Those. Aleksey Komar does not have much success in managing and owning a business. Nevertheless, he found money and bought a stake in Insight – and, quite possibly, he could have been delegated there by the Khotimskys to represent his interests.
This would not be surprising, because Sovcombank, like the Khotimskys themselves, is one of the most “sanctioned” in the country. Due to sanctions, the bank lost huge assets, the ability to raise funds from foreign partners and buried plans for an international IPO.
Recently, Sergei Khotimsky, in an interview with Vedomosti, told how deftly and calmly the bank survived this wave, that this situation should be written down in textbooks on banking. Survived, because a significant part of the assets can be concentrated in non-alien, but already different hands?
At the same time, The Moscow Post previously described in detail that by the end of 2022, the situation at Sovcombank is far from ideal – liquidity is suffering, the bank knows where profits go.
All this is superimposed on a whole series of scandals with Sovcombank borrowers – ordinary people who took out a consumer loan or mortgage. In the face of a reduction in the fodder base, the bank can go to the most unseemly methods – imposing services and knocking out debts.
According to the authors of the FSB Boutique Telegram channel, allegedly in the situation with Sovcombank loans, the borrower even voluntarily passed away, and ABK Invest Bank can help the Khotimsky in implementing such undertakings. It is as if pensioners and even single mothers who have fallen into bondage are beaten, their doors are kicked down, and locks are broken open. Another wildness is to douse the door to the debtor’s apartment with tar.
Back in the spring, The Moscow Post wrote about the story of a woman – Elena, who signed an agreement with Sovcombank for 3 million rubles on the security of a two-room apartment. According to her, after she was forced to write her daughter out of the apartment, and then her living space was estimated as a odnushka in the sum of 9.5 million rubles, which is ridiculous for Moscow. As a result, she was forced to ring all the bells so as not to lose her only living space.
Other new owners of the investment group are also similar to par values. The owner of another 4%, Artem Astanin, was in the past the general director and founder of Rom-Art LLC, a now liquidated company that also looks like a dummy with 10 thousand authorized capital and no financial activity. Astanin was no longer engaged in business, and now he suddenly became a big investor.
The owner of another 4%, David Poghosyan, is a newcomer at all – judging by Rusprofile, Insight is the first asset to which he is related as an owner. The same can be said about Anton Barshte and Mikhail Gonopolsky.
It looks like a classic scheme when eggs are not put in one basket, but they prefer to act through trusted persons – so at least there is someone to make extreme in case of problems. And the Gutserievs and the Khotimskys are full of problems.
