A loud land scandal flares up in Russia’s third-largest city. The mayor’s office of Novosibirsk did not allow the company, which planned to invest more than a billion rubles in the victory, to the auction. The auction was won by an LLC with an authorized capital of 12 thousand rubles, in which one employee is registered. It is unlikely that local officials believe that this company will be able to develop a vast territory without the participation of the “right” subcontractors …
On May 22, an auction was held in Novosibirsk for the right to conclude an agreement on the integrated development of the territory (KRT) within the boundaries of st. Ippodromskaya, st. Frunze, Zhurinsky Spusk in the Central and Dzerzhinsky districts of the city. Land area – 67 thousand square meters. m.
The auction was initiated by the city administration. The decision to hold the auction in November last year was signed by Mayor Anatoly Lokot. The document determined the initial cost of the object of the auction (contract) – 58 million rubles.
At first, the auction was supposed to take place in January, but it was canceled by the decision of the Central District Court of Novosibirsk on December 23, 2022.
The result of the May auction made a sensation. The auction was won by Komfort LLC, which offered 60 million rubles for the right to sign the contract.
However, as the Novosibirsk publications write, another potential participant in the auction, a company that is part of the GK Rastsvetay, was ready to pay … a billion rubles for winning the auction.
Taken and not allowed
Four contenders applied for participation in the auction: Specialized Developer Krasnoobsk.Montazhspetsstroy LLC, Comfort LLC, Specialized Developer Akatsiya on Vatutina LLC and Meta Construction Company LLC. The last two were not allowed to bid because their application allegedly does not meet the requirements specified in the notice of the auction:
As far as one can understand, it is Specialized Developer Akatsiya na Vatutina LLC that is part of the Rastsvetay Group of Companies, since the founder of this LLC with a 99.99% share is Rastsvetay Invest LLC. Local media write that the company was not allowed to trade on clearly formal grounds – due to “the absence of copies of documents confirming the commissioning of capital construction facilities in accordance with the Federal Law of November 29, 2007 No. 282-FZ “On Official Statistical accounting and the system of state statistics in the Russian Federation in the form of statistical observation.
At the same time, according to media reports, the LLC provided the organizers (Department of Construction of the Mayor’s Office) with 39 permits for the commissioning of facilities. If so, then there are all signs of bias in order to exclude the company from the list of participants. With the same wording, Construction Company Meta LLC was not allowed to participate in the auction.
One gets the impression that Anatoly Lokt’s subordinates “led” the right company to victory, which turned out to be a very strange Comfort LLC. The auction was completed virtually without a fight (only one step was made in the auction, equal to 2 million rubles).
Director and plasterer in one person?
So, the auction was won by Comfort LLC, which is engaged in the production of … plastering works and has minimal performance indicators. Its authorized capital is only 12 thousand rubles. According to the Federal Tax Service last year, there is only one employee in the state – most likely, the general director. The company had no revenue in 2022.
The founders of “Comfort” with shares of 50% are two people: Sergey Chechko and Mikhail Shashkov. Until June 2, 2022, Igor Belokobylsky was listed as a founder. Shashkov and Belokobylsky are directly related to a large developer – the Swifts Group of Companies. And a man with the surname Chechko in 2018 was sentenced to 4 years probation for organizing a large embezzlement (more than 46 million rubles) during the construction of a military camp.
Acacia on Vatutina, which was not admitted to trading (in fact, the GK Rastsvetay), as follows from the comments of the group’s representatives, was ready to allocate 1 billion 50 million rubles for the conclusion of the CRT agreement, while approval was received for issuing a loan from Sberbank in this amount. In addition, the company expected to invest in the resettlement of old houses and the development of permits in the amount of 1 billion 80 million rubles.
Thus, the mayor’s office of Novosibirsk in one fell swoop refused 2 billion rubles, doing everything so that the notorious auction was won by a company that can be called a “dummy”. “And to whom are they making such gifts now?” one of the local developers asked a question in a conversation with journalists.
But what about the budget deficit?
The main question in this story looks like this: will Comfort LLC with its modest staff of employees be able to comprehensively develop the territory of 67 thousand square meters? It is clear that the company will have to involve at least several subcontractors in the project, whose possible connections with Novosibirsk officials will certainly be studied by law enforcement agencies. After all, during the auction, a billion rubles was at stake, which, presumably, would not be superfluous in the budget of Novosibirsk.
Mayor Anatoly Lokot (represents the Communist Party) complained many times about the lack of money in the city treasury. In particular, during the covid pandemic, he complained that the budget sank … by a billion. And later, he repeatedly pointed out that the city was sorely lacking funds. However, against the backdrop of this, the administration of the communist mayor cheaply gave a giant land plot to a strange company. There are only two explanations for this: either someone’s hidden interests, or the curtsy of the mayor’s office towards the Marxist-Leninist ideology, which rejects the supervalue of money in the system of ideal state relations. Which one seems more plausible to you?