Non-childish games of “mother and daughter”
They demand billions of rubles from Sibanthracite’s subsidiaries. New owner of the coal giant Oleg Polyakov changed the approach to mutual settlements with contractors and suppliers, they were dissatisfied and went to court. At the same time, the enterprise was included in the US sanctions list, which will inevitably lead to a drop in production. The situation threatens social and financial problems for the entire Novosibirsk region.
What does the governor think about this situation? Andrey Travnikov – it’s difficult to say. At least for now, the regional leadership is not reacting in any way to what is happening, perhaps hoping that the problem will “resolve” somehow on its own.
Meanwhile, the Open Technologies company (Tapp Group) sent claims to the Mari El Arbitration Court against the subsidiaries of the Sibanthracite coal holding for a total amount of 4.4 billion rubles: against Open-pit mine Vostochny LLC on 1.3 billion and almost 3.1 billion rubles to Razrez Kiyzassky LLC. Both applications have not yet been accepted for consideration.
According to the plaintiff, the company refused to pay for the construction of industrial facilities at these open-pit mines. Tapp Group, as follows from the lawsuit, designed four modules of a hydrosorting complex for 12 million tons of coal per year for Razrez Vostochny and built one of them for 3 million tons; for Razrez Kiyzassky it created a coal processing site based on the Parnaby modular unit Cyclones. However, according to the additional agreements signed, the cost of the objects has increased. The sorting complex module rose in price from 1.6 to 2.2 billion rubles, of which the customer refused to pay 1.3 billion, and the production complex at the coal processing site increased in price from 3.22 to 5.99 billion rubles, but 3.1 billion of them the structure of “Sibanthracite” refused pay, Tapp Group alleges in its lawsuits.
Suicidal decisions
The applicant claims that payment problems began shortly after the change of ownership at Sibanthracite. This company has a long history of changing beneficiaries. The legal entity was created back in 1993. The production assets of the Sibanthracite group belonged to the Cyprus Sibanthracite PLC, the sole shareholder of which was the Alltek company, the chairman of the board of directors of which and the owner of more than 86% of the shares was a billionaire Dmitry Bosov. In 2020, according to the official version, he committed suicide. His widow claimed the bulk of the securities Katerina Bosov, however, the court distributed them differently – each heir received 10%. The main part of them agreed to sell their shares to the A-Property company Albert Avdolyan and his partner Alexandra Isaevarelated to Sergei Chemezov. Katerina Bosov* is believed to have negotiated on the same topic with the general director and co-owner of the Coolstar holding. Boris Varshavsky.
However, at the end of last year, A-Property sold the company to the Bashkir Industrial Holding, controlled by a “serial entrepreneur” Oleg Polyakov.
However, the management of the coal company left behind the previous team of top managers led by the CEO Sergei Melnikov. At the same time, already in February of this year, BPH changed its name to Sibcapital LLC.
Nothing to pay with
Now, due to the refusal of the new management of Sibanthracite to pay for supplies, Open Technologies cannot pay 15 equipment manufacturers in China, including Aury (Tianjin) Industrial Group, Guangzhou Tuodao New Material Technology and others. The range of supplied equipment includes screens (necessary for sorting various rock fractions), crushers, cranes, conveyors, pumps, compressors, which have no domestically produced analogues. Tapp Group also sent a collective appeal (on behalf of more than 20 subcontractor companies) to the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS). In the appeal, the contractor calls the customer’s actions “sabotage.” Refusal of Sibanthracite to repay the debt for work performed will lead to the difficulty of paying wages to more than 1 thousand employees involved in the launch of factories.
It is known that Tapp Group, together with more than 20 other subcontractor companies, sent a collective appeal to the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia (*aggressor country) and the Federal Antimonopoly Service, using crude terms like “sabotage.” The authors also note that due to Sibanthracite’s refusal to repay the debt, difficulties may arise in paying wages for work already completed to more than a thousand workers.
The defendant, for his part, insists that all these claims are unfounded, and he also has questions about the quality and timing of the work, and he is ready about this sue.
Surprises ahead
If the current claims against the subsidiaries of Sibanthracite are satisfied, most likely this will not be a disaster for the enterprises. According to Seldon Bas, the net profit of Razrez Vostochny LLC at the end of 2023 amounted to 13.1 billion rubles, and Kiyzassky – 16.7 billion. However, the situation may well cause additional problems, especially since in May Sibanthracite, which, by the way, is the world's largest producer of UHG anthracite, the main producer of metallurgical (coking) coal in Russia (*aggressor country) and one of the main taxpayers of the Novosibirsk region, USA contributed to the sanctions list. The company itself did not comment on this decision, but observers say that all this could lead to a drop in production volumes by at least 10% – most likely from products will refusefor example, South Korea.
At the same time, the business strategy of the new owner still remains unclear. BPH, also known as Sibcapital, was created shortly before the purchase of Sibanthracite, at the end of 2021, and, according to Seldon Bas, at the end of 2023 it received a loss of 6.3 billion rubles – 570 times more than a year earlier .
At the same time, it is unclear whether the governor of the Novosibirsk region Andrei Travnikov has a strategy, whose region, if such problems worsen, will face both social tension and financial losses – the Kiyzassky open-pit mine alone paid 3.3 billion rubles in tax last year profit.
And are new contractors ready to work with Sibanthracite, whose new owners have already shown how they can leave contractors without money?
