Siluanov and Skigin met in a hemp field
It looks like there is a corporate conflict in the holding “Konoplex”, which is engaged in the cultivation of technical hemp. Its parties may be the team of Yevgeny Skigin, the son of the founder of the Petersburg Oil Terminal, Dmitry Skigin, and people close to Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.
The reason, as usual, could be huge money – a few years ago, the Ministry of Industry and Trade announced that it would support the production of bast hemp. It seems that many other business interests may intersect in this case, and even resentment of old partners against each other.
A few days ago, the Moscow Arbitration Court satisfied the claims of the Cypriot offshore Konoplex Limited (“Konoplex Limited”), represented by offshore director Yevgeny Skigin, against the Konoplex holding company to invalidate the decision of the extraordinary meeting of the owners of the company.
As one of the decisions, they decided to appoint Roman Belousov as chairman of the general meeting of the company’s participants, to approve a new board of directors and a number of other decisions. At the same time, Roman Belousov, along with Konoplex Limited, is the owner of 50% of Konoplex LLC.
As follows from court documents, representatives of Konoplex Limited were not notified at all about the meeting. Although in court, Mr. Belousov said that both participants took part in the meeting. Moreover, in one person – both Belousov personally and Belousov, acting by proxy from Konoplex Limited. But the court denied these allegations.
All this is reminiscent of an attempted raider takeover with a further possible extrusion of Evgeny Skigin from the common business. But the court, we repeat, sided with the offshore, which is Mr. Skigin.
But this is far from the only court case between the participants of Konoplex LLC. On the same day, February 6, another decision was made – the Moscow Arbitration Court satisfied another claim of Skigin’s company related to the decisions of the previously elected Board of Directors of the company, at which Skigin himself or his representatives were not present.
A number of decisions were adopted there – changes to the charter, various provisions, and so on. The court ruled that Evgeny Skigin’s rights had been violated. It should be noted that the court documents do not disclose the essence and content of the changes that Roman Belousov’s representatives could try to carry out “under the guise”. And it seems that this is only the beginning of a corporate conflict.
Lay in spite of partners
Now there is a whole series of lawsuits from Konoplex Limited against Konoplex LLC and personally Roman Belousov in court. For example, this one, where the third parties are the subsidiaries of Konoplex – Konoplex Agro LLC and Konoplex Management Company LLC.
The substance of these claims is not disclosed. But, according to the authors of the Arbitr Telegram channel, allegedly, we can talk about invalidating a number of transactions concluded by Konoplex LLC. It already really looks like a corporate war – so far in the judicial plane.
The publication “Business Vector” also writes about this. Back in September 2022, Konoplex Limited and Konoplex LLC tried to bring to account the tax authority, Roman Belousov and a number of companies related to him – Toll Road LLC, Toll Road Central Research and Design Institute LLC, and also LLC “UK” Toll Road “.
Further, in October, Roman Belousov filed a lawsuit on behalf of Konoplex and in the interests of Penza-controlled LLC Konoplex Foods. The defendant was a Cypriot offshore company, and the third party in the case was Konoplex Management Company LLC.
At the same time, the plaintiff (Belousov) achieved the imposition of interim measures: “Konoplex Limited” was forbidden to perform any actions aimed at levying execution under the specified agreement on the pledged property, as well as its transfer to third parties.
At the same time, it is clear from the documents that Konoplex and Konoplex Foods learned about the occurrence of a pledge of movable property only much later. Is this the ground for conflict?
But the conflict can also move to a less legal plane, if you know who the same Yevgeny Skigin is. He is the son of an authoritative St. Petersburg businessman Dmitry Skigin, who, after the death of the latter in 2003, inherited his father’s assets. Another son of Skigin, Mikhail, did not remain idle, and he became chairman of the Board of Directors of the Petersburg Oil Terminal.
Knitted by one Traber
Dmitry Skigin was known as the man of Ilya Traber (“Antiquar”), a crime boss who was put on the wanted list by the Spanish police as a member of the Tambov-Malyshev criminal group. One of the main assets of Traber-Skigin was considered to be the St. Petersburg oil terminal mentioned above.
The situation with hemp production promises considerable benefits. This topic has been actively developing in Russia since 2018, when it became known that Konoplex LLC entered into cooperation agreements with the O’Key, Karusel and Azbuka Vkusa hypermarket chains. There, the townspeople will be offered cold-pressed oils under the Konoplyanka trademark.
Later, in 2020, lobbying for the development of the industry began at the highest level. The topic was supervised by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Ministry of Finance, under the leadership of Anton Siluanov, was instructed to ensure that expenditure obligations for this are included in the percentages in draft laws on the federal budget. Then it was said that the amount of budget subsidies could exceed 3 billion rubles.
And here you can see the interests of Minister Siluanov himself. The previously mentioned Roman Belousov worked in the structures of the late Dmitry Skigin. After his death, the affairs in the St. Petersburg oil terminal went to his son Mikhail. In 2003, Mikhail Skigin came to St. Petersburg to audit the inheritance. At the same time, he met Roman Belousov, who was part of the terminal’s managing holding.
However, Mikhail Skigin decided to abolish this managing holding – together with Belousov. Apparently, then a black cat ran between them. And even though their cooperation resumed in 2008 (the Skigins turned to Belousov’s consulting business to seek funding for the creation of tankers at Krasny Sormomo), Belousov himself could hardly be considered a member of their team.
And already in the 10s, the well-known Olga Khromchenko, who was called close to Anton Siluanv and almost his common-law wife, turned out to be Roman Belousov’s stalls.
Earlier, PASMI (the publication is recognized as a foreign agent in the territory of the Russian Federation) and many other media wrote about the possible connection between Siluanov and Khromchenko. She probably represents the minister’s interests.
She, Olga Khromchenko, from September 2019 to May 2022, is a co-owner of shares in Rusdor-Finance LLC, a structure that, on a concession basis, is building many toll roads in Russia, especially around Moscow. Earlier, Anton Siluanov justified the need to increase the number of such roads.
It was he who lobbied the Government for the idea of creating a special state fund to finance toll roads. Its total amount should be 3 trillion rubles.
Now Olga Puchkova and Alexei Stroganov own shares in Rusdor-Finance LLC. Their shares are pledged to Gazprombank, i.е. financing of their projects is carried out with the involvement of public funds, to which Anton Siluanov could clearly have a hand.
At the same time, Rusdor-Finance is directly connected with Roman Belousov. This company owns 20% of Podmoskovnaya Paid Doroga LLC, another concession project with the government of the Moscow region.
And the remaining 80% of the company belongs to Paid Road LLC. It is 51% owned by Roman Belousov, 49% by the Cypriot offshore Tollway Limited.
Returning to Khromchenko and Belousov, it turns out that, at least until May 2022, they were partners in Rusdor-Finance LLC, which received the most delicious concessions for the construction of toll roads, and even backed by money from state banks.
Anton Siluanov did not share with the Skigins?
A hypothesis arises – did Khromchenko, Belousov, and, possibly, Siluanov standing behind them, share the income from these projects? For example, now the construction of the Lytkarinsky toll road around Moscow has entered an active phase, the capital expenditures for which are estimated at more than 150 billion rubles, and the passage of one kilometer will cost 10 rubles for one car. This is huge money.
It is possible that they did not share. And this could have become a cause of contention in another direction of joint activity – the cultivation of industrial hemp. And, it seems, these are only the first acts of the Marlezon Ballet, where the Skigins could be on one side of the confrontation, and on the other – Belousov, Khromchenko and Anton Siluanov, flashing behind them.
