“Profitmed” for the amendment of health: the interests of Golikova could be in the pharmaceutical company
One of the largest pharmaceutical companies Profitmed can be bankrupt with the participation of German Gref for its former owner Viktor Kharitonin?
The CEO of the pharmaceutical distributor Profitmed, Dmitry Svirin, is suspected of fraud with a Sberbank loan.
As the correspondent managed to find out, the interests of the head of Pharmstandard Viktor Kharitonin and the country’s chief banker German Gref may be “protected” in history.
Creditor spree
Profitmed’s problems began in 2021, when the organization’s profit began to steadily decline, and, according to the latest indicators, it has a negative value of 8.8 billion rubles. Creditors are dragging the company through the courts. The largest are the claims of Sberbank, according to whose claim the property of the company itself, and then Svirin, was arrested.
At the same time, according to industry experts, Profitmed worked as usual until the end of 2022, and there were no external manifestations of systemic problems. So there is a suspicion that his bankruptcy may be deliberate.
Interestingly, lawsuits against the company also came from structures associated with Mr. Kharitonin – for example, from Aresbank, which belongs to him – the financial institution wanted to please itself with 600 million rubles. The court has not yet considered this claim, although almost six months have passed since it was filed.
Kharitonin gave a loan, in fact, to himself, and now he is demanding money back from himself?
A lawsuit against the company was also filed by Eklif, which appears in the cartel conspiracy case of 2020 – the OFAS then suspected it along with Profitmed. This suggests the conclusion that “Eklif” may also be included in the circle of interests of Kharitonin.
Polisan, Khristenko, Golikova
Recently, the large pharmaceutical company Polisan sued Profitmed for more than 258 million rubles. This company (Polysan), as the correspondent managed to find out, may be part of the circle of companies close to the former head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Viktor Khristenko and his wife Tatyana Golikova.
The fact is that the hallmark of the company is the drug “Cycloferon”. And Nativa was engaged in its production – it was headed by Alexander Malinin, who previously worked at the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare during the period when Golikova was just the Minister of Health.
Mr. Kharitonin is also considered a close associate of the Golikov-Khristenko tandem. After all, it is Pharmstandard that often gets large state preferences and contracts that any company in the pharmaceutical market wants to get. Golikova and her husband did everything to promote the Arbidol drug (the drug is produced by Pharmstandard).
An even more eloquent fact is that Golikova’s stepson, Vladimir Khristenko’s son, who now owns one of the largest pharmaceutical companies Nanolek, began his journey at Pharmstandard.
So, it can be assumed that in the case of the bankruptcy of Profitmed, the beneficiaries of Polisan can act together with Kharitonin.
Won’t miss his
It is curious that until 2021 Kharitonin was the founder of the Profit House company, which owned Profitmed. It was also owned by Olga Svirina, the wife of Dmitry Svirin. Then Kharitonin left this asset, and everything, apparently, went to Svirin. When things got better for the company, Kharitonin might want to return everything back.
Photo: Rusprofile
Svirin also owned a stake in Profitmed. And, oddly enough, they did not take him as collateral to secure a loan, did not begin to try to negotiate a restructuring, as is usually the case in such situations, but immediately brought a case against him. They say that Kharitonin decided to simply “squeeze” the business from his partner, and for this he decided, among other things, to use the help of German Gref.
Gref on the “wire”
And here we come to another key figure in the story. If you look at how briskly Sberbank allocates loans to other structures and restructures them without any problems, it becomes surprising that the bank did this with Profitmed. For example, network 36.6, which recklessly borrowed money from creditors and was in an extremely difficult situation in 2011, managed to restructure all its debts to other creditors in Sberbank without any problems. The amount was serious – 4.15 billion rubles. Under the new loan, a stake in Veropharm was pledged.
Restructuring is a common practice of the state bank – it did exactly the same with AvtoVAZ and other structures, both public and private.
By the way, Sberbank is also actively lending to Pharmstandard structures. For example, in 2016, OTCPharm received as much as 8.6 billion rubles, which was formed in December 2013 as a result of the spin-off of a branded over-the-counter business from the Pharmstandard structure.
Recently, situations have been multiplying around Gref related to the seizure of assets by Sberbank – in a legal way, but still raising some questions.
For example, since October last year, the packaging company Gotek, founded by Vladimir Chuikov, has come under the control of the offshore SALGON INVESTMENTS LIMITED. According to media reports, part of this offshore is controlled by Sberbank.
The bank ended up in the company’s capital due to Chuikov’s debts to him. Nothing like a crime. However, it is known that the Board of Directors of Gotek included the CEO of SBK Karton (a former structure of Sberbank) Ivan Ponomarev and the deputy CEO of Sberbank Capital Fyodor Perfilyev. And that gave them some leverage.
According to the authors of the sites, allegedly “SBK Karton” immediately took a fairly tough position in managing all the affairs of “Gotek”. This led to the termination of contracts with a number of buyers and suppliers in court. Instead, the creditor imposed his suppliers and buyers on Gotek, under less favorable conditions for the company.
This, as we understand it, could have affected the financial position of the company and, accordingly, its ability to pay off debts. So there is a feeling that the company can be ruined from the inside, in order to be later taken over at a bargain price.
Isn’t the same situation happened with “Profitmed”? And then this asset can sail away into someone’s good hands (the same Kharitonin, for example), as has already happened with many Sberbank companies bought with state money.
By the way, for a long time he was in control of the Sberbank Capital structure, headed by the former president of the RPL, Ashot Khachaturyants. It was during his time that what was called nothing more than a raider seizure of “Pavlovskgranit” took place. Now the latter is bankrupt, like its former owner Sergei Poimanov, who lost all court cases to Sberbank. Sberbank Capital, as in the situation with Gotek, then took the company for debts, having previously entered its capital. Khachaturyants left Sber structures in 2021. But methods remained?
Given the good relations between German Gref and Viktor Khristenko, it is more likely that Kharitonin and the head of Sberbank coincide with the interests than that Svirin really cheated. Operation-privatization in the final stage?