The county is not a problem: Gushchin and Chichikashvili “loom” behind the owners of Ultima Development
Billionaire Yuri Gushchin, who may have flown abroad, may do business in Moscow through Konstantin Ustyugov and Alexei Rzhevtsev. Former top managers of the elite developer Insigma Konstantin Ustyugov and Alexey Rzhevtsev created the development company Ultima Development and are going to build the Orbital business center on 3rd Magistralnaya Street in the west of Moscow.
The business interests of other influential entrepreneurs, in particular Yuri Gushchin, may be involved in the story.
Bank “mole”
Insigma is owned by Dmitry Chichikashvili. This is a major metropolitan developer specializing in the premium segment. Ten years ago, he joined the board of directors of the foreign Bank of Cyprus, along with the former head of Norilsk Nickel, Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, and other representatives of the Russian business elite.
It is the Bank of Cyprus that appears in the OCCRP investigation as an institution-assistant in the bankruptcy of the agricultural holding “Mriya” to the executive director Andrei Guta. A number of Ukrainian publications spoke about this.
The media suggest that members of the Guta family are to blame for the incident – from the general director and ex-chairman of the supervisory board of the company, Nikolai Huta, to Andrei Guta. Wasn’t Mr. Chichikashvili also involved in the described scheme, and isn’t he currently developing his business using Mriya’s funds?
Among other things, Chichikashvili was at one time a member of the board of directors of Uniastrum Bank, which was accused of creating a financial pyramid. This bank was bought by the Bank of Cyprus in 2008 – it later turned out that the deal went through an assessment of 3.1 capital of a credit institution. The auditors said that the former leaders of the Bank of Cyprus destroyed a number of documents that could indicate their involvement in the bankruptcy of a credit institution.
Now Uniastrum does not exist – its assets were attached to the Eastern Bank, and that, in turn, was bought by Sovcombank. So it is unlikely that anyone will understand the affairs of bygone days and the possible fraudulent actions of bankers from the Bank of Cyprus.
According to the authors of the 2ch website, Chichikashvili allegedly was on the board of directors of the “burst” Otkrytie. And according to the authors of the Wiki website, he allegedly served on the board of directors of the Sverdlovsk provincial bank, which was controlled by the local government and later went to Otkritie.
For a family member (judging by the patronymic – for the son) Chichikashvili, the Norden company was previously registered – now it belongs to a Belize offshore, through which “gray” financial flows can go.
Friends-comrades
Chichikashvili is interesting not only as an independent figure. The publication “Company” in 2011 called him the deputy chairman of “Guta-bank” – an asset of billionaire Yuri Gushchin. Although this fact cannot be found in the official biography, perhaps this is an attempt not to advertise this connection. Although there is reason to believe that Chichikashvili was on a short footing with Gushchin. At least for the reason that “Guta-development”, which is part of the Gushchin group “Guta” and “Insigma” Chichikashvili, together built the “Italian Quarter” in the center of Moscow.
More importantly, the Sverdlovsk provincial bank, founded already in 1994, was initially controlled by Guta-Bank.
Chichikashvili may have been with Gushchin since those times. Did he represent his interests in other banking structures, where his name shines? And wasn’t it in his interests that these structures eventually “collapsed”?
By the way, Sberbank seems to have given money for the Italian Quarter. According to the authors of the 1dom website, allegedly “Dmitry Chichikashvili noted that at the end of the crisis year of 2008, the Italian Quarter was practically the only project for which Sberbank opened a credit line. According to him, developers have enough of their own funds to complete construction within the stated terms independently, and a bank loan is an additional “airbag” that guarantees that the project will be built on time.”
At a minimum, the project cooperated with Sberbank in the mortgage field – which was widely covered in the media.
As The Moscow Post previously wrote in his investigation “Gref will help Gushchin in the sweet life”, the head of Sberbank German Gref and Mr. Gushchin could work together in the field of bankruptcy of Glavtorg, the last of the distributors of the United Confectioners holding. So, there is reason to believe that Mr. Gref also has something from projects with Gushchin and structures close to him.
Simple difficulties
Gushchin’s business is not very “sweet” at the moment. So much so that we assumed that he was no longer in Russia. The total profit of all firms where Gushchin is the head at the end of 2021 amounted to -607 thousand rubles. A similar story is with firms where Gushchin is the founder. The value of his stake for 2021 was negative. Some of his companies are related to offshore companies – didn’t all the profits go there?
Guta-bank itself, according to the latest data, has minus indicators in almost every line. He has no long-term assets, a giant receivable. The most significant share of the bank’s assets is formed from borrowed funds.
The data are given based on percentage changes to the previous period (per month) for January-February 2022.
A company associated with Gushchin, which bought two Seychelles hotels Coral Strand Hotel and Savoy Hotel, the other day lost a dispute with the local owner of the hotel Natalie Lefevre, from whom Gushchin’s structures tried to buy out a share for $ 1 instead of its real value. Lawyers for the Seychelles side mention that one of the loans issued to the company that owns the hotel looks like an attempt at money laundering.
In addition, information was leaked that Gushchin could acquire passports of Malta and the Seychelles, and change his name to IOURI GOUCHTCHINE.
The plan is solid – like a Swiss watch?
Gushchin’s son-in-law Artem Kuznetsov, through Timokhin’s MR Group, knows the ex-shareholder of the company Timur Gutnov, whose brother, in turn, is Sobyanin’s only son-in-law. Perhaps that is why Ustyugov and Rzhevtsev, who may represent the potentially Gushchinsky Chichikashvili, have now been given a major construction project in Moscow.
In fact, Gushchin could “bleed” his assets with the help of the same Gref and now manage business in Russia from abroad through proxies. And when the law enforcement officers miss, it seems like there will be nothing to take from Gushchin. Although, in fact, the same Ultima Development can be created with the money “earned” by Gushchin dishonestly.
