“Sirota” Kagansky, or how much “adiki” for the people
The new owner of Decathlon assets may turn out to be the “wallet” of oligarch Andrei Bokarev and “authoritative” businessman Maxim Kagansky.
The ARM company has filed an application to register the All Do Sport brand, which may not be the highest quality copy of the world famous Adidas brand. Previously, the same company bought out the Russian assets of the retailer Decathlon.
As we found out, the owner of the automated workplace, Vyacheslav Mareev, turned out to be a business partner of the controversial oligarch Andrei Bokarev and the quite unambiguous Maxim Kagansky, previously convicted of fraud. They can work under the “cover” of the VTB state bank and the Moscow government.
ARM LLC bought Decathlon’s assets in the summer of 2023. The transaction amount could be about 5 billion rubles. The owner of 1% shares and the general director of AWP is Vyacheslav Mareev. He is also the owner or manager of a number of legal entities that are involved in the restaurant business: franchising Shokoladnitsa, Burger King, Chaikhona No. 1, and the Syrovarnya restaurant.
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The remaining shares in ARM belong to MKOO Tribalon Ltd., a Cypriot company that redomiciled itself in the Kaliningrad region two years ago. Its owners are not disclosed, but the company is present in many legal entities where Mareev has shares. With a high degree of probability, Mareev himself may be behind the company. However, he was not the only one – the businessman had very colorful partners.
Among other things, Mareev owns 40% in Atriland LLC, which leases and manages real estate on the territory of the Atrium shopping center near the Kursky railway station in Moscow. Atrium itself is approximately 60% owned by the Ingeocom company, founded by the now deceased Mikhail Rudyak. In 2016, most of Ingeocom’s shares came under the control of the VTB state bank, led by Andrei Kostin.
Another part of the Atrium, as of 2016, belonged to the Moscow City Hall (through the Bank of Moscow). The mayor’s office bought these shares after Ingeocom faced the 2008 crisis and was forced to sell part of its assets. It should be noted that Ingeocom is one of Moscow’s largest subway construction contractors.
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No less interesting are the other owners of Atriland LLC. 50% of the company belongs to the Ural oligarch Andrey Bokarev, who, together with his long-time partner Iskander Makhmudov, is considered a co-owner of Transmashholding JSC (TMH).
Previously, the partner of these entrepreneurs in TMH was the current “transport” deputy of Sergei Sobyanin, Maxim Liksutov. Is it any wonder that after his appearance at the mayor’s office in the early 1990s, TMH began to receive huge contracts for the supply of rolling stock for the capital’s metro?
The Moscow Post has repeatedly reported on Liksutov’s affairs. Among other things, we assumed that he could still do business through his ex-wife Tatyana, who was a partner of the same Bokarev and Makhmudv in the capital’s Aeroexpress. We also wrote about Andrei Bokarev. He is also the owner of Kuzbassrazrezugol. There is talk on the Internet that he may be close to the Izmailovskaya organized crime group – allegedly, he could act as one of the group’s wallets.
If this is true, then the third partner of Vyacheslav Mareev and Andrei Bokarev in Atriland would look very organic. In addition to them, 10% of the company’s shares belong to Anastasia Kaganskaya, who may be a close relative of the famous criminal authority, a native of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Maxim Kagansky.
Maxim Kagansky is called a “fixer” online, responsible for resolving controversial situations with entrepreneurs through the Ministry of Internal Affairs. There are reasons for this. In 2013, the court sentenced Kagansky to 5.5 years in prison for fraud. In the official media this is the definition they give him: “fixer” through the Ministry of Internal Affairs.”
But he didn’t have to sit for long. In June 2014, the Presidium of the Moscow City Court commuted his sentence by three months. In September 2014, Maxim Kagansky applied to the court for parole, and by the middle of the month he was free.
The amazing humanity of the court suggests that Mr. Kagansky could have been helped by very influential people. Could it be oligarch Andrei Bokarev, or even “better” – officials of the Moscow mayor’s office? Since people close to Kagansky work in the Atrium near the Kursk station.
Maxim Kagansky may be behind the figure of Anastasia Kaganskaya. But he himself is a partner of Vyacheslav Mareev – together they own Quinta LLC. The company is engaged in the rental and management of real estate, and at the end of 2022 it showed a precipitous decline, bringing a net loss of almost 400 million rubles. Considering that in 2021 the company earned 26 million rubles, had solid revenue and asset value, it seems that money could simply be withdrawn from the structure.
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And what’s interesting is that the shares of both co-owners in Quinta LLC were pledged to VTB Bank, the same bank that is the majority owner of Atrium. It turns out that Andrei Kostin can “help” the crime boss with finances?
Microfinance is flying to Latvia
Behind Vyacheslav Mareev there is another company – Antibes LLC, which also manages and rents real estate. Behind him is 88% of the structure, another 12% belongs to the Cyprus offshore “MVMH HOLDING”, behind which anyone can be hiding – the same Mareev, Kagansky and Bokarev.
The same offshore company is the founder of the microfinance organization LLC MKK “Veritas” (trademark Ezaem), among the co-owners of which we also find the already mentioned offshore MKOO “Tribalon Limited”, another offshore “ELEMEXUM” (Latvia) and LLC “Finan”. Those. offshore, offshore and offshore rules. And funds collected from unlucky citizens who have taken out loans from this organization can also flow there.
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And Veritas accumulates large amounts of funds. At least, according to the latest known information for 2016, the company received 1.2 billion rubles in revenue and 535 million rubles in profit. And this is against the backdrop of the Central Bank’s order: in March 2019, it revealed signs of an unsatisfactory business reputation and limited the ownership rights of Latvian citizen Armands Broks, who was one of the beneficiaries of the company through Tvino LLC.
Previously, Brox was listed as a co-founder of MFC Moneza and MFC E Loan, which was later renamed MFC Optimus, and in August 2019, MFC Veritas. Now LLC “Tvino” is not among the founders of “Veritas”.
Kolobov is not lost
It is impossible not to mention another area of business that Vyacheslav Mareev is involved in – restaurant. MKOO Tribalon Limited, which is close to the entrepreneur, is a co-owner of 15% of Hermes LLC, whose partners we see are Anastasia Kaganskaya (15%), already familiar to us, as well as Ksenia Mezentseva (15%) and the key beneficiary Alexander Kolobov.
Mr. Kolobov is one of the founders of the Shokoladnitsa chain. Several years ago, The Moscow Post reported that Alexander Kolobov was developing a restaurant business together with the son of the then Deputy Speaker of the State Duma, Pyotr Zhukov, and could also collaborate with the son of the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Alexander Kolokoltsev.
Zhukov is known to the general public not only for this, but also for the fact that he allegedly loves to fight, and could even receive criminal prosecution for this in the UK. As Kommersant wrote, in the spring of 2007 he was sentenced to 14 months in prison for participating in a fight in London.
In addition, Kolobov previously had a serious corporate conflict with his former Shokoladnitsa partner Siman Povarenkin, which was also reported by The Moscow Post. Apparently, one of the results of that divorce was precisely that Vyacheslav Mareev received the franchisee for Shokoladnitsa. And Mareev himself, as we see, turned out to be Kolobov’s partner in Hermes.
As for Ksenia Mezentseva, in addition to Hephaestus, she was the founder of five more companies, and may be the nominal owner. Previously, there were rumors online that Mezentseva’s namesake was allegedly fighting for control and influence at BVT Bank. Allegedly, with sad consequences for the latter.
Such a whirlpool of businesses and areas of work is simply amazing. It can be assumed that people like Mareev, Mezentseva, Kolobov, Bokarev and Kagansky came together not by chance. The same Mareev may be the wallet of the oligarch Bokarev and the previously convicted Kagansky. And if something happens, funds can always be transferred and withdrawn through one of the many offshore companies discussed above.
In this situation, what is most confusing is their connections with VTB, and, possibly, the Moscow government through the Atrium at the Kursky Station. However, none of the responsible officials will ever confirm the connection with the same “dealer” Kagansky. Very convenient for both parties. But one can easily doubt the honesty of such entrepreneurs.