Sberbank intends to file for bankruptcy of the Kamchatka fish processing plant (RPZ) Sokra. The credit institution posted a corresponding notice on April 17 on Fedresurs. The bank itself declined to comment. Socre did not respond to a request. Such notification is mandatory during the bankruptcy proceedings, says Alexandra Alfimova, Head of Bankruptcy and Restructuring Practice at Savina Legal. She adds that now the bank can apply to the court with a statement within 15 days.
RPZ “Sokra” specializes in the extraction and processing of aquatic biological resources. The company owns fishing quotas in 2023 of about 3,900 tons of flounder, 6,000 tons of pollock, 1,000 tons of cod, according to the Federal Agency for Fisheries. Sokra itself indicates that it produces more than 15,000 tons of products per year, including red fish and caviar. The company operates its own onshore plant as well as a fleet of nine vessels. The owner of a 51% stake in the company, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, is the Kamchatka businessman Andrey Obedin, another 44% belongs to Sergey Andreev, and the remaining 5% belongs to Sberbank Investments.
The amount of the debt that caused claims from Sberbank was not disclosed. But at the end of October 2021, it was reported that the bank would issue a loan for 3.8 billion rubles to Sokra RPZ. for the construction of three fishing vessels and a fish processing plant under the investment quota program. At the same time, construction contracts, judging by the data of Kontur. Focus”, became the subject of a pledge to the bank.
Problems for the company could arise precisely because of the decision to renew the fishing fleet, says Alexander Fomin, Executive Director of the Association of Industrial and Commercial Enterprises of the Fish Market. To participate in the investment quota program, companies immediately assume financial obligations, but they receive the right to harvest only after the commissioning of facilities, says a top manager of a fishing company. At the same time, according to him, the implementation of projects is being delayed due to sanctions, so that fishermen face difficulties with servicing loans, since they cannot get the right to mine.
Difficulties with the construction of ships within the first stage of the investment quota program are also recognized by the authorities. In 2022, the Russian government postponed the implementation of projects from 2025 to 2027. Additional time was needed to redesign the ships. RPZ Sokra, in particular, planned to build the first ship by 2023. The trawlers themselves are being built at the Rybinsk Shipyard of the Nobel Brothers. They said that the work is ongoing, adding that detailed information on the progress of construction is being transmitted to the Federal Agency for Fishery, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. But a Vedomosti source familiar with the construction of fishing trawlers at the Nobel Brothers Shipyard claims that funding for Sokra projects was suspended a few months ago. According to him, only two of the three vessels have been laid down today, none of them have been launched. He attributes this to the fact that after the imposition of sanctions in 2022, foreign suppliers did not supply fish-searching equipment to Russia.
In the event of the bankruptcy of the company, the property of Sokra will be put up for auction, says Metaksya Harutyunyan, a lawyer from the Yakovlev and Partners group. But the rights to extract aquatic biological resources, according to her, will not be included in the bankruptcy estate, since the quota is, in fact, a license, and they are not sold at auctions. The Federal Agency for Fisheries stated that in the event of termination of the concluded agreements, the shares for the right to harvest will be put up for re-bidding.
15 000 t
production per year, according to the company, is produced by Sokra. It owns catch quotas in 2023 of about 3,900 tons of flounder, 6,000 tons of pollock, 1,000 tons of cod
Meanwhile, the Investigative Committee of Russia is investigating a criminal case against the owner of Sokra, Andrey Obedin, on charges of fraud and abuse of power, follows from materials published on the website of the Moscow City Court. According to information from the open letter of the businessman’s wife Anastasia Obedina, he is accused of illegally obtaining part of the property of the Konkom shipyard in Kamchatka. The UK did not answer questions about the progress of the investigation.
Alfimova of Savina Legal says that a criminal case usually does not affect the bankruptcy procedure. But individual disputes, such as contesting transactions or bringing to subsidiary liability, may depend on the conclusions of the investigation.
The head of the Information Agency for Fisheries, Alexander Savelyev, believes that Sokra could also have problems in connection with the upcoming changes in the rules for the distribution of salmon fishing rights in Kamchatka. He recalls that the Federal Agency for Fishery is already preparing a draft reform, according to which plots for salmon fishing are planned to be put up for auction.