The transfer of Lev Khasis to a new holding may be an attempt to withdraw profitable assets from under the bank, and at the same time evade responsibility for a series of failures.
According to the correspondent The Moscow Post, Sberbank, managed by German Gref, announced plans to divide the ecosystem business into two parts: for business, and for customers, and the so-called. e-commerce (“electronic commerce”) – separate into a separate holding, which will lead Lev Khasis – the right hand of German Gref, deputy chairman of the board of Sberbank.
Actually, Lev Khasis will leave the post of deputy chairman (as well as the board of Sberbank) – allegedly in order to concentrate on increasing the profits of the new holding. Recall that this will include the bank’s investments in SberMarket, SberMegaMarket, SberLogistics, Sber Eapteka and SMM Retail, as well as a stake in the O2O holding jointly with VK.
It will be possible to send non-core assets to the new holding. Non-core, but fairly pumped up by public funds. Considering that the holding will be a separate structure, it will become more difficult for Sberbank to control it directly.
It is obvious that Lev Khasis kills several birds with one stone by his transition to the new holding.
Firstly, he gets control over the holding, whose total revenue in 2021 could reach about 200 billion rubles. In the near future, this indicator is planned to be increased to 500 billion rubles, presumably due to new acquisitions and budget injections.
Under Gref, Lev Khasis developed into a holding company with a revenue of 200 billion rubles. And what about the losses from his investment activity? Photo: sberbank.com
Secondly, today Lev Khasis is perhaps the most scandalous character in the top management of Sberbank. He gives reasons to regularly “beat” the entire board, and not only, as it is believed, German Gref. Stepping down from the board will help Khasis escape from criticism for a string of failed projects and underperforming investments. Or maybe it will take away from him a more serious trouble – with a corruption-criminal “smell”.
As a reward for service
The strategy, according to which the new holding of Sberbank should achieve revenue of 500 billion rubles by the end of 2022, is presented in the Organization’s Development Strategy until 2023. This entire topic was previously supervised by Mr. Khasis. What are these failures that we mentioned above?
First of all, Lev Khasis can be blamed for the failure of Sberbank’s attempts to become a major shareholder of Ozon in 2020. The structure inadequately estimated the value of the asset at 1.4 billion rubles, in addition, Sberbank’s managers insisted on rebranding the retailer.
The next failure – Sberbank and one of the largest companies in the world – the Chinese Alibaba did not become partners in the e-commerce market. The situation was reminiscent of the swan, cancer and pike from Krylov’s fable: Sberbank insisted on creating a joint venture that could trade outside of Russia (what an appetite!), while Chinese entrepreneurs had a completely different goal – localization in the Russian Federation. Of course, for the same Khasis and Gref, the JV option would be much more profitable. After all, it is easier to drive money through a separate structure.
Another failure is the “divorce” of Sberbank and the VK group, which took place in November 2021. Sberbank became disillusioned with the company’s shares and sold its stake to Gazprombank for 12.8 billion rubles. It remained in a small plus (I bought it for 11.3 billion rubles). But taking into account inflation and the exchange rate difference, no plus, most likely, happened, and if there was any, it is not clear in whose pocket this difference eventually settled.
In addition, Khasis initially oversaw the whole story. It turns out that the failure of cooperation and investment in VK is his failure too. In general, in the incomplete year 2021, Sberbank, under the leadership of Gref and Khasis, suffered losses from ecosystems with which the topic of e-commerce is closely related, by almost 20 billion rubles. Writes about it “Version”.
For this, in general, they are fired. But, apparently, not in the team of German Gref. They decided that the time had come to give Khasis the management of a whole holding with a revenue of 200 billion rubles.
But what if Gref’s right hand is the main risk for the new structure?..
Offshore “partners”
The risk of a new undertaking is huge, it is associated, oddly enough, with the continuation of sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation, its officials and banks. But it’s not only that.
A couple of months ago, there was a rumor on the network that supposedly Lev Khasis had been blacklisted by Sberbank for a long time as a swindler. In particular, as stated “Rosbalt” (included in the register of media-foreign agents on the territory of Russia), supposedly even “the question of the continuation of the activities of the first deputy chairman of the board of the bank, Lev Khasis” could be raised. True, soon most of these messages disappeared from the network, and no one confirmed their veracity.
Later, other rumors appeared: allegedly, at the suggestion of Gref, Sberbank launched a campaign to clean up negative information about itself on the network. About 58 million rubles could be allocated for this. The amount is considerable – apparently, therefore, soon reports of such expenses also disappeared from the public domain without a trace. But if we assume that this is true, is the head of Sberbank really worried about his colleague?
Hardly just for him. Indeed, together with Khasis, Gref himself got into a major offshore scandal. This happened after the publication of the sensational “Pandora’s dossier” – a list of documents of major Western registrars of offshore companies.
So, documents are circulating on the net, from which one can conclude about the strange behavior of Lev Khasis. In these documents, a certain ex-owner of the Technosila and Dauria Aerospace companies, Mikhail Kokorich, asks for asylum in the United States. It turned out that Kokorich was one of the founders and CEO of a multi-billion dollar business in the States – the Momentus group. It was a “space” startup, where you can bring any technological assets. As follows from the document, Kokorich owns it together with Olga Khasis-Finkelstein-Bespechnaya. Lev Khasis’s wife’s name is Olga Khasis, and as if her maiden name is precisely Careless.
A source: investors.momentus.space
It can be assumed that the wife of the vice president of Sberbank owns a large, multi-billion dollar business in the United States, and her partner seeks asylum in this country. Somehow it does not really fit with the statesmen German Gref and Lev Khasis. Or are they statesmen only as long as they occupy state (and very profitable) positions? ..
A source: investors.momentus.space
It also states that Olga Khasis allegedly has American citizenship. The company itself may be related to the former Deputy Secretary of Defense of the United States, as well as the former head of the Pentagon Space Development Agency, John Rod (here is his biography on website Momentus bands). But could not Olga Khasis and her husband Lev meet with them to discuss certain issues? ..
Returning to Gref: he also became a defendant in an offshore scandal. As a result of the publication of the Pandora dossier, it became known that, allegedly, about $ 50 million were found in accounts that could be connected with Gref in Singapore and Samoa. Writes about it “Ura.ru” . It is unlikely that he could earn such money in his entire career.
Back in 2011, German Gref established the Angelus Trust in Singapore to manage more than $55 million in family assets, according to the documents. The trust was subsequently liquidated. But before that, Gref decided to make his nephew, 24-year-old Oscar Gref, living in Switzerland, the manager and beneficiary of the Angelus Trust.
They are trying to present Lev Khasis as German Gref’s “purse”. It is possible that part of Gref’s possible assets could be placed just in the Momentus group, which they are trying to connect with Khasis and his wife.
There are rumors that Lev Khasis himself may have citizenship or a residence permit in the United States. Therefore, it is extremely important for him to be able to fly to this country – this way he could protect his own assets.
So maybe that’s why it is now extremely important for him to leave the board of Sberbank in order not to fall under the rink of new Western sanctions in connection with the recognition of the LPR and DPR and the Ukrainian crisis? ..
By moving to the chair of the head of a new holding, he will in this way keep huge investments, take himself out of harm’s way, make life easier for the boss and relieve himself of a number of sanctions risks.
The question is: what are the benefits from this holding, in fact, to the state (which, we recall, in the person of the government and the Ministry of Finance, owns 50+1 shares of Sberbank)?..
A manager of dubious efficiency, who may have a foreign passport, is now out of sight of the Sberbank board. Will the life of Russians get better from this? Hardly. But Gref and Khasis have probably already calculated everything, including profits in the form of dividends for “successful” investment activities.