Merkle blessed “Bashsoda”: from the change of owners, their profit does not change

The prosecutor is trying to withdraw from the balance of the state four companies associated with the HeidelbergCement group of the German billionaire Ludwig Merkle, including the license holder for the extraction of raw materials from the Shah-Tau field used by Bashsoda.

At once, four interconnected assets are withdrawn to the balance of the state by the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia – offshore-owned shares in Heidelbergcement Rus LLC, shares of Raw Materials Company JSC, which is related to Bashsode, and shares of Tsesla Shale Cement Plant JSC. The same claim in favor of the Tula region will try to recover the shares of Gurovo-Beton OJSC.The roots of the holding, which controls three cement plants in Russia, goes to the Netherlands, working under the guise of offshore Heidelbergcement Central Europe Holding B.V. from HeidelbergCement group of the German billionaire Ludwig Merkle (Ludwig Kurt Merckle).

Prosecutor’s claims brought to court

On August 25, the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region will consider the claim of the Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia on the recovery in favor of the state of 100% of the shares in HeidelbergCement Rus LLC from the ownership of the Dutch company Heidelbergcement Central Europe East Holding B.V., 277,369 shares of Raw Materials Company JSC , which belong to the above LLC, shares of Tsesla Shale Cement Plant OJSC from the Leningrad Region (owners – offshore and minority shareholders – Lyudmila, Oksana, Evgeny Porozov and Sergey Bondarev), as well as in favor of the Tula Region shares of Gurovo-Beton OJSC. the asset is owned by the Dutch offshore and its “daughter”.

Interim measures were imposed in the case – arrest of the shares of the defendants, a ban on making changes to the register of owners, and the ability to withdraw funds from enterprises or sell assets was blocked.

Photo: https://kad.arbitr.ru

All these companies are united by being in a division of the HeidelbergCement group, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of building materials.

According to the company’s website, the division includes the CESLA cement plant in the Leningrad region, the cement plant in the Tula region, the cement plant in Sterlitamak (Bashkiria), the Tula OJSC Gurovo-Beton, the terminal in Kaliningrad (LLC KaliningradCement) and the terminal in Murmansk – LLC “Norcem Kola”. The assets are interconnected through a Dutch company.

Photo: https://disclosure.1prime.ru/

It is worth noting here that KaliningradCement LLC, Nortsem Kola LLC and KhTs Yug LLC (breeding of cattle breeds) do not yet appear in the claim of the supervisory authority, although everything is owned by a company from the Netherlands, that is, under the control of a foreign investor .

According to Forbes, 27% of HeidelbergCement is owned by Ludwig Merkle. In 2022, HeidelbergCement generated revenue of 21.1 billion euros.

Merkle also owns stakes in pharmaceutical companies Ratiopharm, Phoenix Group, Kaessbohrer (snowmobile manufacturer) and a stake in Zollern.

Note that all these years, the foreign billionaire has been actively earning in Russia and on government contracts. So, for example, LLC “Heidelbergcement Rus” was a supplier in 17 contracts worth more than 191 million rubles.

And what about “Bashsoda”?

JSC “Bashkir Soda Company” was invited as a third party in the case at the suit of the supervisory authority, whose shares the prosecutor seized in favor of the state back in 2020 were among the first – after loud protests related to an attempt to develop shikhan Kushtau. Shikhan later received the status of a specially protected natural area.

At the end of 2022, the Federal Property Management Agency owns 57.44% of the authorized capital in BSC, including 11.72% in trust management of JSC Regional Fund. In 2023, the state shares of BSC were transferred to the trust management of the Russian Hydrogen company.

We turned to the history of the BSC not in vain. The fact is that one of the co-defendants in the new case, Raw Materials Company JSC, 277,369 shares of which turned out to be owned by HeidelbergCement Rus LLC, owned license 0261016750 for the extraction of limestone from the Shakh-Tau deposit for 2021. This limestone is used by BSK as the main raw material.

Photo: www.soda.ru/

The state in Raw Materials Company JSC, judging by the reporting of 2021, had a share of only 50%, which created certain difficulties. The second share of the company, which in fact controls the raw material base of BSC, actually ended up in the hands of foreigners. This is exactly what the Prosecutor General’s Office is trying to eliminate with the help of its lawsuit.

Photo: www.soda.ru

The license for the above-mentioned shikhan Kushtau was also issued to the Raw Materials Company, but back in 2021, through the court, it was banned from developing this shikhan.

The story of the return of Bashsoda, which was illegally privatized, has already been told in detail by The Moscow Post. But I would like to note that in the reporting for 2022 it is specified that a certain Moscow LLC Sovlink received dividends in the amount of more than 253 million rubles from BSC.

Photo: https://www.e-disclosure.ru

According to Rusprofile, the Sovlink company is owned by Dmitry Pyatkin, co-owner of Alba Alliance Bank, co-founder of JSC Bashkhim, who appeared in the scandalous story with Bashsoda together with Sergei Chernikov. Chernikov is the second co-founder of Bashkhim.

Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru

They say that earlier Mr. Chernikov, before the story with “Bashsoda”, worked in the Ministry of Natural Resources, and for some time even served as the first vice-governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

An interesting somersault comes out. It seems that the shares were withdrawn, but the profits are still received by the same persons, perhaps in a smaller volume.

Plant “Cesla”: a few words about the asset

If the above assets are related only to the offshore and its “daughter”, then some individuals were noted in the Tsesla plant, whom the Prosecutor General’s Office also plans to deprive of shares.

According to the plant’s report for 2022, it follows that 99.98% of the company’s shares belong to an offshore company from the Netherlands. And individuals – Lyudmila, Oksana, Evgeny Porozov and Sergey Bondarev own only 0.02% of the share.

It is noteworthy: at the start, the plant was built into the technological chain with mines and a plant for processing oil shale into artificial oil. That is, the asset is also of great strategic importance for the country’s economy. In addition, the plant has licenses for the development of limestone deposits for the production of cement “Zapadnaya Borovnya – Yuzhny” and “Zapadnaya Borovnya – Severny”.

In this whole story with the Russian assets of the German holding, in our opinion, there is also a lack of a criminal case in parallel. After all, somehow the strategic enterprises of Russia ended up in the hands of foreigners? It is hard to believe that such transactions were carried out without the help of dishonest officials. But this is a matter for the Sledkom.