A new participant may appear in the ranking of the 200 richest businessmen in Russia. The basis of the state of Alexei Krapivin is his stake in the structures of the 1520 Group of Companies, the largest contractor of Russian Railways.
This year, Forbes for the first time estimated his fortune at $800 million. In the future, the group should become part of an even larger holding created by VEB.RF and the Rotenberg family
IN ranking “Kings of the state order”, which Forbes published in February 2018, the first line was taken by four businessmen: Alexei Krapivin, Boris Usherovich, Yuri Obodovsky and Valery Markelov, co-owners of the 1520 Group of Companies, which designs and builds infrastructure for Russian Railways. Forbes estimated their share in contracts received from the railway monopoly at 218 billion rubles. That rating of “kings of state orders” was the last: the government allowed state customers not to report on the recipients of large contracts.
Much has changed for 1520 since then. At the end of the same 2018, on suspicion of giving bribes, Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Dmitry Zakharchenko was arrested Valery Markelov. Boris Usherovich was put on the wanted list. The litigation is still ongoing, but 1520’s business, apparently, is not negatively affected. The group, which includes several dozen companies, does not disclose consolidated financial figures. According to Forbes, in 2018-2020, its revenue grew by 65%, to 161 billion rubles. In the future, its assets should be included in the joint venture between Arkady Rotenberg and VEB.RF Natsproektstroy. Recently, RBC, citing a representative of Natsproektstroy informedthat Alexei Krapivin owns 4% in the company. Krapivin is now the main owner of 1520. This year, Forbes for the first time estimated the value of his fortune at $ 800 million – this amount is enough to enter the ranking of the 200 richest businessmen in Russia.
How does Krapivin’s business work?
Giant on the railroad
Almost a third of the revenue of the 1520 Group of Companies – 58 billion rubles in 2020 – is provided by the Moscow company Roszheldorproject. It was created in 2006 on the basis of Soviet railway design institutes owned by Russian Railways: the company now has almost two dozen branches. Roszheldorproekt owns 61% in Dalgiprotrans, a design institute dating back to the 1990s and registered in Khabarovsk. And 75% of “Roszheldorproekt” belongs to the St. Petersburg “Lengiprotrans” – this is one of the designers of the Baikal-Amur Mainline, leading the story since the 1930s. These three companies form the design division of the group. The owner of almost 70% of Lengiprotrans is Alexey Krapivin.
Another part of the empire includes construction companies. Aleksey Krapivin owns them through the 1520 Group of Companies with an office in a mansion on Prospekt Mira. The largest structures are United Construction Company 1520 (OSK 1520) with a revenue of 44 billion rubles and Bamstroymekhanizatsiya, together with its parent company UK BSM, which earned about 19 billion rubles in 2020. OSK 1520 operates throughout Russia, building not only railway infrastructure, but also metro facilities. Bamstroymekhanizatsiya has been based in Tynda in the Amur Region since the BAM was laid. As RBC wrote, the company built the Chita-Khabarovsk highway, the railway to the Elga coal deposit, the Lena highway in Yakutia, and even Olympic facilities. In 2014 Bamstroymekhanizatsiya won the largest tender worth 133.5 billion rubles for the development of the Eastern test site, including the construction of the second branch of the BAM and the reconstruction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. In 2021 Bamstroymekhanizatsiya agreed with the Federal Penitentiary Service that part of the work at BAM will be carried out by Khabarovsk prisoners.
Valery Markelov, member of the board of directors of JSC Roszheldorproject, is considering a petition for arrest in the Basmanny District Court of Moscow (Photo by Andrei Nikerichev, Moscow Agency)
The history of the formation of the “1520 Group of Companies” is not known for certain. At the same time, the scale of the business becomes clear even after a cursory study of the reports of the companies included in it and information about them on the SPARK-Interfax portal. But it was not always so. An illustrative example is with Bamstroymekhanizatsiya. Until 2014, its leader and owner was its founder, one of the BAM builders, Vasily Tarasenko. But on the eve of the multibillion-dollar tender, an offshore company became the owner of the company, which even Tynda officials did not immediately learn about, RBC wrote. At the same time, Krapivin, Markelov and Obodovsky joined the board of directors of the company.
Two years earlier, Krapivin and his partners became heroes investigations Reuters, dedicated to Russian Railways contractors. The Reuters publication was based on the transaction database of the Capital Trade Bank (STB), which was transferred to the publication by its former owner of the bank, German Gorbuntsov. The ex-banker said in several interviews that back in the mid-2000s, STB serviced accounts of companies that won Russian Railways tenders, but did not carry out any work, although they received money for them, and then transferred abroad and cashed out. The companies were united under the code name “Client Tokyo”, behind them were supposedly the future co-owners of “1520” – the group officially appeared in 2014. At some point, Gorbuntsov allegedly had a conflict with them, he was forced to leave Moscow for London. In March 2012, an assassination attempt was made on him, but Gorbuntsov miraculously survived.
Little is known about Alexei Krapivin. Perhaps the only interview he gave was by e-mail to Slon (now – Republic, recognized as a foreign agent. – Forbes). Born in 1985 in Tashkent, graduated from the Financial Academy under the Russian government. But Valery Markelov studied in Tashkent – he was born in 1965 and graduated from the Tashkent Higher Combined Arms Command School. The father of Alexei Krapivin, Andrei, also graduated from the Tashkent Polytechnic University. It is Krapivin Sr., who moved to Moscow in the 1990s and took up the banking business, is usually called one of the founders of 1520. At least since the 1990s, he was well acquainted with Vladimir Yakunin, who in 2005 headed Russian Railways. In 2007, Yakunin spoke of Andrei Krapivin as a person well versed in banking issues. Then Krapivin Sr. worked for Yakunin.
“Krapivin, of course, was the main one, Markelov was the workhorse and think tank, Usherovich was responsible for the security cover, and Obodovsky, the only one of all, was a railway worker,” described distribution of roles in business one of the former partners of the “kings of state orders” in an interview with TheBell. In 2015, Krapivin Sr. died, and his shares in the business were transferred to his son.
In 2019, shortly after the arrest of Valery Markelov, Krapivin Jr. became the main beneficiary in the 1520 Group of Companies. Its share increased from 28.33% to 71.7% due to the shares of Markelov and Obodovsky. Then they left the board of directors of the group. Boris Usherovich, put on the wanted list, still remains a co-owner of 1520. But in the company “Lengiprotrans”, its reporting testifies, its share in 12% of the shares was alienated – in favor of whom, it is not known. In 2020, Usherovich’s son Kirill joined the board of directors of the company.
Business of kings
According to Forbes, the value of Krapivin’s shares in all 1520 companies, taking into account dividends received over the past five years from Lengiprotrans, is $ 760 million. The rest of his fortune falls on a minority stake in the Natsproektstroy group.
The creation of a mega-player in the infrastructure construction market became known in the summer of 2019. Petersburg International Economic Forum announced about the alliance of another long-term “king of the state order” Arkady Rotenberg and VEB.RF. The list of assets that will have to enter the perimeter of Natsproektstroy was surprising: in addition to one of the largest contractors of the Kerch bridge, Mostotrest and TEK Mosenergo, owned by Rotenberg’s son Igor, the Group of Companies 1520 was called. At the same time, Vedomosti, citing seven interlocutors wrotethat the Russian Railways contractor is allegedly under the influence of Arkady and Igor Rotenberg. In 2004-2005, Igor Rotenberg worked as vice president of Russian Railways, and after resigning, he took some of his colleagues into the family business. The representative of the Rotenbergs denied the information that they could be the beneficiaries of “1520”. However, they are connected by business relations: the structures of the 1520 Group of Companies are credited in SMP Bank and Mosoblbank Rotenberg.
The formation of “Natsproektstroy” began a long time ago. In 2020, the company included assets allocated from Mostotrest, at the end of 2021 it became the owner of TEK Mosenergo. The entry into the JV of the structures of the 1520 Group of Companies is a matter of the future. But Aleksey Krapivin has already received 4% in the megacontractor. About this RBC told representative of “Natsproektstroy”. He also said that VEB.RF owns 48% in the company, the rest of the shares are distributed among closed-end mutual funds, the little-known company NPO Center (it bought TEK Mosenergo from the Rotenbergs), a small stake belongs to the general director of TEK Mosenergo Dmitry Ryabov.
Krapivin’s stake in Natsprojectstroy could cost at least $40 million. This estimate is based on the company’s net assets, which in the spring of 2021 amounted to 76 billion rubles. The amount coincides with the contribution to the authorized capital that Natsproektstroy received upon creation and then, as follows from its balance sheet, invested in some long-term financial projects.