“Offshore empire” of the Guryevs: how the “deck” was shuffled

It seems that the Guryev family has hidden assets in the West so that ill-wishers will not be able to sue PhosAgro shares with all their will.

Photo: https://rus.team/people/gurev-andrej-grigorevich

The Moscow Post has received some interesting information from a source regarding former and current beneficiaries of PhosAgro Group, one of the world's largest producers of phosphate fertilizers needed for food production.

It is believed that Andrey Guryev and the closest members of his family remain the key owner of PhosAgro. The informant provided information about individuals and companies (Russian and foreign) that could or could be related to the assets of PhosAgro.

The correspondent of The Moscow Post understood the situation.

Shuffling “offshore “

The informant claims that allegedly since the time of Menatep, the Cypriot offshore Cordial Limited, opened in 1995 and now liquidated, has been a shareholder of PhosAgro. The leadership was a certain Antreas Michael (ANTREAS MICHAIL).

Another offshore company, according to a source among the shareholders, is Flotork Limited, also from Cyprus, and also opened in 1995. His leadership lists Kornilos Zopri and George Zopri (KORNILIOS ZORPI, GEORGIA ZORPI).

Allegedly, these are shareholders from the times of Menatep, as well as foreign agent, terrorist and extremist Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The attack on the latter was carried out so harshly that the above-mentioned structures and nominee directors of firms in other Russian businesses have never figured. Where they went is not clear, but Cordial Limited was liquidated in 2011. The second one is still active.

Photo: https://i-cyprus.com/ru/company/142444

Perhaps, for many years, a significant part of PhosAgro's assets was hidden in these two offshores after the end of the story with Menatep and the beginning of Andrey Guryev's “free floating”. But then the dark times of the geopolitical crisis and sanctions restrictions began.

In March 2022, PJSC PhosAgro announced the reduction of its share in the authorized capital of Phosint Limited (address: 24/10/2011 Basίli Michailίdi, 21, 3026, Limassol, EYI PILABAKI), through which the company controlled foreign trading. Then 95% of the shares were bought by the management of trading structures through the Cypriot “Negrinio Limited”.

The bottom line is that the structure transferred control over foreign trading to Negrino Limited, leaving only 5%. Information about this is available on the PhosAgro website. It was probably supposed to avoid sanctions for Negrino Limited and continue trading in fertilizers calmly.

And here we step back a little. The fact is that one of the beneficiaries of PhosAgro and likely partners of Mr. Guryev, according to our informant, allegedly could be Elbrus Magdeev – possibly the son of Rustem Magdeev, known as a former assistant to the current head of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov.

Elbrus Magdeev was and remains a co-owner of Open Investments LLC, which, according to the source, allegedly owns 1.5 hectares of land of the Ministry of Defense in Kazan. Then Farhat Vafin turned out to be among the owners: today these two still remain co-owners of the company.

Photo: Rusprofile.en

However, the source claims that subsequently another founder was the offshore Blogverse holdings limited from Cyprus, which operated from 2008 to 2016. However, in the open information system “Rusprofile” no Blogverse holdings limited is indicated as co-owners of the LLC. Perhaps they were simply hidden.

Another thing is interesting: the address of Blogverse holdings limited in Cyprus VASILI MICHAILIDI 3026 LIMASSOL is very similar to the address of the company mentioned abovePhosint Limited (Basίli Michailίdi, 21 , 3026, Limassol). The question appears to be correct. Those. it can be assumed that both of these offices are affiliated and were located in Cyprus at the same address. And sometimes they worked for the same people.

Photo: https://i-cyprus.com/company/361860

Could Rustem Magdeev have anything to do with Andrey Guryev and PhosAgro? It is not possible to answer this question precisely, but there are suspicions. At the same time, Magdeev himself is an incredibly scandalous character, and is actively suing journalists who are trying to present his ins and outs to the public.

Gazprom is on the wire

Poland, recently introduced a whole block of sanctions in relation to PhosAgro, PhosAgro Polska and … the same Negrino Limited.

You can read about it in the material RBC. However, there, for the most part, we are talking about companies associated with Gazprom. And there, the Guryevs can also have their own people. For example, long-term press secretary of “Gazprom” Sergey Kupriyanov. Which, by the way, has disappeared from TV screens in recent years … I wonder why?

After the introduction of serious sanctions, the Guryevs, apparently, thought that they should “hide” better and deeper. According to the source, Negrinio Limited changed its name to Purefert Holding Limited. And this is already a familiar name of the offshore, which they tried to associate directly with the Guryevs, and which was discussed in our previous article.

In a strange way, the previous name of the same company until August 2022 was Phosint Limited – another offshore company, which we mentioned in the previous article, as a likely “pod” of the Guryevs.

Photo: https://opencorporates.com/companies/cy/HE140840

In turn, according to source, the name was changed by another company – a similar one (Purefert Trading AG) also changed the name of PhosAgro Trading, which, apparently, carried out trading operations on behalf of the Russian holding Guryevs.

Our source claims that none other than Sergey Kupriyanov, the full namesake of the press secretary of PJSC Gazprom, turned out to be in the leadership of PhosAgro Trading. On one of the Czech sites that maintain a register of legal entities and their leaders, his name is located on the same card with PhosAgro Trading. It is indicated that he took part in the management of the organization. “Offshore empire” of the Guryevs: how the “deck” was shuffled type=”image/jpeg” alt=”Guryev's "offshore empire": how the "deck" was shuffled” />

Photo: https://www.moneyhouse.ch/de/person/kupriyanov-sergey-130662650001

A reasonable question arises: how could an employee of the Russian state corporation Kupriyanov conduct such activities? And who could he be – one of the beneficiaries of the company, or just a lobbyist receiving a “rebate” for his hard work?

Timur Rashidov, Alexey Emelianov, Dmitry Grevtsov, and Kenneth David Baxter were among the other managers of the subsequently renamed PhosAgro Trading. The source suggests that PhosAgro Trading itself was originally a subsidiary of Menatep, which was then renamed many times and subsequently used for the needs of the Guryev empire.

Our days

Who else can have him attitude? According to the source, this is the former general director of OJSC PhosAgro Maxim Volkov, who worked back in the days of Menatep. Allegedly, he wanted not only to remain a shareholder of the structure, but also to increase his share.

Now, according to the source, he and the offshore structure Menoza Trading Limited (registered at the already known address Basίli Michailίdi, 21 3026, Limassol) can now own 1.33 million shares, which is equivalent to 1.12% of the company's authorized capital.

Photo: https://opencorporates.com/companies/cy/HE289158

What about those who holding assets now? Among them, as can be assumed from the information provided to us, is a member of the board of directors of PhosAgro, Igor Dmitrievich Antoshin.

And besides him, the informant connects several more offshore structures with the business of PhosAgro. This is the Cypriot Vindemiatrix Trading Limited, which acquired control of Carranita Holdings Limited and Dubberson Holdings Limited. However, the fact is that all three of these companies initially had the same leaders in the person of Alexander Batyukov and Andrey Tsvetkov.

They tried to present Andrey Guryev Jr. as the beneficiary of these companies. However, according to Vedomosti, it was Igor Antoshin, mentioned above, who transferred ownership of his stake in Phosagro to Russian jurisdiction, liquidating the same Dubberson Holdings Limited, Carranita Holdings Limited and Vindemiatrix Trading Limited. It turns out that it was through them that he owned shares in the holding.

Ultimately, according to our source, the shares of Dubberson Holdings Limited, Carranita Holdings Limited, Dubhe Holdings Limited and a number of other offshore companies that may be associated with the Guryevs and PhosAgro were transferred to a trust, the beneficiaries of income from which, in theory, should be Andrey Guryev and members of his family.

Dividends on schedule

And now a little modern context to the circumstances described above. Today Andrey Guryev and PhosAgro are in a whole series of lawsuits. In 2021, in Britain, the London court accepted for consideration the lawsuit of PhosAgro co-founder Alexander Gorbachev against Andrey Guryev, demanding to recognize his right to 24.75% of the shares of the structure. The amount of Gorbachev's claim is 160.5 billion rubles.

At the same time, Igor Sychev, the former head of PhosAgro's tax department, claimed the rights to 1% of the company's shares. The essence of his claims is simple: at one time, even when Guryev and Co. were related to the Menatep company of Mikhail Khodorkovsky (recognized as a foreign agent, terrorist and extremist in the Russian Federation) and Platon Lebedev, he was able to fight off the multibillion-dollar claims of the Federal Tax Service of Russia, which saved the company 300 million rubles.

For this, Guryev allegedly promised him 1% of the company's shares, but did not fulfill the promise. At that time, 1% was worth over $50 million. As a result, Sychev filed a lawsuit with the High Court of London, and while living in Latvia, he allegedly began to receive threats related to this case. The Moscow Post wrote about this earlier.

However, our informant believes that all lawsuits with attempts to obtain shares of the company or compensation, or to achieve sanctions bans on the operations of the structure are doomed to failure. Why? Because allegedly all related assets, including the company's international traders, are transferred to the trusts mentioned above.

And “deciphering” trusts and their “holders” is a very difficult and expensive business, where even a request for documents costs a lot of money. An example of a closed Stiftung-type trust in Liechtenstein is given, one request for information on which costs 80,000 euros. ” class=”include-img” loading=”lazy” title=”"Offshore empire" of the Guryevs: how the "deck" was shuffled” type=”image/jpeg” alt=”Guryev's "offshore empire": how the "deck" was shuffled” />

Andrey Guryev Sr. knows where the money is. Photo: https://m.severpost.ru/read/94724/

At the same time, Andrey Guryev himself , according to rumors, allegedly lived in London a long time ago, in the 25-room Witanhurst Palace. And even, as they say, it doesn’t blow in the mustache. But it receives huge dividends from its Russian business.

In early November, amid the current economic crisis and sanctions restrictions, the PhosAgro group paid its shareholders multibillion-dollar dividends for the first half of 2022. According to them, the Guryev family should receive 48.4 billion rubles, i.e. almost $ 800 million. You can’t forbid a beautiful life, the main thing is to hide assets in time…