The owners brought the defense “Tantal” to bankruptcy without intent

Source The Saratov Arbitration Court did not find those responsible for the collapse of the defense Tantalum. There will be no subsidies for owners of 1.3 billion. Subsidiary liability for beneficiaries and top managers of the Saratov defense plant Tantal was not applied for only one reason. With all the obvious problems that led to the bankruptcy of the enterprise, the court did not see exhaustive evidence in the arguments of the bankruptcy trustee that it was the controlling persons who should be responsible for them in rubles.

This is, in brief, the motivational part of the ruling of the Arbitration Court of the Saratov Region of December 6. The bankruptcy trustee Anatoly Dokukin insisted on subsidiary liability for the former general director of Tantal Alexander Solopov, the founder Alexander Lyashenko and members of the board of directors Nadezhda Lyashok and Vadim Ivankov. The total amount of the plant's liabilities accumulated after February 1, 2018 amounted to 1.38 billion rubles.

The main arguments of the manager were based on an analysis of the state of solvency of the debtor, starting from January 1, 2018. As it was established, a significant part of the financial and economic performance indicators of Tantal were already at the beginning of 2018 significantly below the norm. Namely, the absolute liquidity ratio (it shows what part of the short-term debt the company can repay in the very near future) was only 0.05 with the optimal value > = 2. The current liquidity ratio, which characterizes the company's payment capabilities under the conditions of timely settlements with debtors and good sales of products, was equal to 0.86, although it should be more than 1 and tend to 2. The coefficient of financial independence also turned out to be below the norm.

“The share of equity in current assets is negative. Analysis of financial stability shows that the company does not have the ability to raise additional borrowed funds, the ability to repay current liabilities that have arisen at the expense of its own assets,” the court ruling says. Tantal also showed negative profitability. The plant, as it was established, could neither repay the debts that had arisen at the expense of its own assets, nor raise additional funds.

Debts “Tantal” began to accumulate from November 2017 and by February 2018 signs of objective bankruptcy had already taken place. But the controlling persons, specifically Alexander Lyashenko and Alexander Solopov, were in no hurry to file for insolvency, and therefore, as the bankruptcy trustee concluded, they should now be personally responsible for what happened to the plant.

The trustee also noted, that already after Tantal was declared bankrupt, that is, after May 6, 2019, the company made a non-market transaction: this is a lease agreement dated June 10, 2020 between the plant and Tanmed LLC on the lease of real estate with the right to purchase. Despite the fact that the parties to the agreement are affiliated persons, in Tanmed 60% belonged to Alexander Lyashenko.

Suspicious transactions were also discovered during the period of increasing debts. So, in December 2017, Tantal signed a real estate purchase and sale agreement with Saratov Shooting Club LLC, the club was also affiliated with the plant and 60% owned by Nadezhda Lyashok. The deal was concluded at a non-market price. The same applies to the settlement agreement concluded in April 2019 at a reduced price with Tantal-Shield LLC, where 40% of the share was owned by Vadim Ivankov, and the company’s legal address coincided with Tantal. As a result, 2 production buildings at Lunnaya Street, 27B, along with a land plot and a brick fence, were taken over by Tantal-Shield.

Several non-residential buildings at Burovaya, 22 and the right to lease land in the same way Lyubov Garakhina, non-residential building in Zorinsky – Pulse-5 LLC. But so far, these transactions are only being challenged in court, and two instances have already refused to recognize them as invalid. And the court itself did not consider the disputes over the leaked factory property to be sufficient arguments for the subsidy.

The verdict on who should be responsible for the fact that the defense company lost orders and collapsed was laconic: “Evidence that the debtor lost its solvency not due to the current economic situation, but as a result of the guilty misconduct of Lyashenko A.V., Solopova A.A., Ivankova V.M. and Lyashok N.A., were not presented to the court.”

Judging by the court document, the defendants did not even bother to present evidence that the billion dollar subsidy should not concern them. Only Alexander Lyashenko's representative was present at the announcement of the court ruling. Arbitration, in contrast to the recent analysis of a high-profile subsidiary for the debts of the Engels Locomotive Plant for ex-deputy chairman Alexander Strelyukhin and Co, also did not give detailed arguments. Yes, the company went into a peak, but the fact that the controlling persons should somehow be responsible for this is not a fact. Not proven. Perhaps, after all, “the current economic situation.”

At the same time, it was completely forgotten how Tantalus classified its financial statements, lost all military customers in 2019, despite the fact that work for the defense industry was its main source of income, unsuccessfully tried to sell non-core assets, even profitable ones like a plastic window factory. An exhaustive opinion on how a defense plant with a long history came to such a life was expressed in 2020 by the late Sergei Lisovsky, an experienced industrialist, ex-head of the regional Ministry of Industry.

– I think there were two mistakes here. The mistake of the state, which gave the strategic enterprise to the will of one owner. And the second is the mistake of the owner, who in a certain period tried to increase production, new models of equipment were created here, and then stopped developing the enterprise. The result was not slow to tell. Business is like that, if you stagnate, do not develop and live on past achievements, then you will be squeezed out, – he explained to BV. its owner. The greater contrast next to ELZ and Tantal is the story of Vladislav Burov's subsidiary liability for the debts of the Solnechnye Produkty holding, which Rusagro Group of Companies is so diligently seeking. According to the main creditor, the entire holding was pre-bankrupt in 2018, despite the fact that it regularly paid its bills and had no debts, and the court of first instance agreed with this interpretation, without even particularly examining the financial condition of the companies.

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