The redistribution of “Rostovvodokanal” will tightly block the tap for residents
The arrested shares of Rostovvodokanal will disrupt the election plan for the party in power. In Rostov-on-Don, several things remain unchanged – Rostov residents do not receive high-quality water, city managers, in fact, cannot correct the situation, and German Vishnevsky managed, manages and plans to continue to manage Rostovvodokanal, accusing everyone and everything of raider seizures and criminal purposes, while recording himself as a patriot.
Rostov-on-Don is the southern capital of the Russian Federation. Many names are woven into the history of the city – from Suvorov to Bashmet. The fortified city played a huge role in the Turkish wars, revolution and civil war. The Germans retreated from the city twice. For its 273 years, Rostov-on-Don has experienced so much that it is time for residents to stop being surprised by everything.
Maybe that’s why the disputes around one of the city’s strategic enterprises – Rostovvodokanal – do not seem like something fantastic, although in reality everything is exactly like that. Despite the fact that the Don is nearby, Rostovites have long had serious problems with water – numerous accidents, the lack of pressure is replaced by water with an unpleasant odor. About 15 years ago, city managers decided to give the water utility to private hands – in fact, to a concession. And as often happens in life, a good idea was followed by such a heartbreaking embodiment that even investigators find it difficult to figure it out, although they try.
From the point of view of legal proceedings, Rostovvodokanal can be safely called a cursed place – in recent years, criminal cases have been pouring into the water canal with very strong pressure. It all started with the fact that in 2016, Stanislav Svetlitsky, who was the president of the Eurasian holding, was detained in the building of the water utility, and before that he was the Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation. He owned a controlling stake in Rostovvodokanal. In 2020, Svetlitsky will be sentenced to 12 years, but he will continue to manage his assets through managers.
Following Stanislav Svetlitsky, on suspicion of fraud in 2021, his son Georgy, who headed the board of directors of the water utility, was arrested – he was accused of stealing 204 million. In July 2022, another former general director of Rostovvodokanal, Dmitry Kubrak, went to prison. It is noteworthy that the manager, who disagreed with his resignation in 2021, barricaded himself and lived in his office for several weeks. Already in August 2022, the next general director of Rostovvodokanal, Mikhail Porksheev, was interrogated. If you do not go into details, then the parties to the conflict are representatives of the Svetlitsky clan and managers who broke away from them, headed by the former general director of Eurasian JSC German Vishnevsky.
According to the editors, this conflict can go on forever – both sides have significant potential, allowing them to come up with new news stories and criminal cases. The only trouble is that more than a million, one hundred and thirty thousand Russian citizens, residents of Rostov-on-Don, are suffering because of what is happening. The situation with drinking water in the city is approaching critical – according to the press service of the Rostov administration, the indicator of physical deterioration of water supply and sewerage networks today is 47%. According to ecologist Alexei Lebedev, in the Rostov region, the shallowing of rivers leads to a significant reduction in drinking water. Valery Stakheev, Deputy Chairman of the Southern Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, stated back in 2021 that the salinity of the Sea of Azov had reached a historical maximum, and this threatened the water supply of Rostov-on-Don and all settlements located in the mouth of the Don.
Cypriot is not a patriot
In 2023, apparently realizing that it was impossible to wait any longer, the city manager of Rostov-on-Don, Alexei Logvinenko, told reporters that the share of Eurasian JSC in the Rostovvodokanal enterprise was seized and the property was put up for auction. According to Logvinenko, 75% of the shares of the utility company were seized as compensation to the state in a criminal case on embezzlement of funds from the depositors of the Narodny Credit bank. The city manager noted that he plans to attract a new large operator who already has experience in managing water utilities in other cities of Russia. Logvinenko would no longer want to see an enterprise under the control of a business not directly related to utilities.
But if Logvinenko does not want to see incompetent managers of water utilities, then the current owners and managers clearly do not agree with him. One of the main top managers of Eurasian JSC throughout the years, while Rostovvodokanal is torn apart by scandals, is German Vishnevsky. The number of scandals and accusations against other persons with his participation in the management of the water utility almost exceeds the number of criminal cases.
In November 2021, as a result of a dispute between the majority shareholders of Rostov Vodokanal and German Vishnevsky, the latter left his post. JSC “Evraziysky” reported on Vishnevsky’s attempt to change the top management of the water utility and appealed to law enforcement agencies and the court about this. After that, the general director of Eurasian JSC German Vishnevsky, who served as chairman of the board of directors of Rostovvodokanal, gathered the media and spoke about the raider seizure of the enterprise by unknown persons, accused the management of the water utility of financial fraud and announced the dissolution of the board of directors of the company. In February 2022, the public learned about another juicy detail. Mr. Vishnevsky admitted (or did so?) that the beneficiary of Eurasian JSC is a Caribbean offshore – Lareli Holdings ltd. Foreigners are the majority shareholder of Eurasian JSC, which, in turn, owns Rostovvodokanal JSC with a 74.85% stake. This means that the company, in fact, pays much less taxes.
Fortels of a degrading Society
It should be noted that the water utility of Rostov-on-Don is not the only asset of the “Eurasian”, which is in a loss-making state and put up for auction. Thus, the company OJSC Nizhnovatomenergosbyt, which is also owned by JSC Eurasian, was declared bankrupt with a loss of more than two and a half billion rubles (the documents are at the disposal of the editors). There are other organizations that you can talk about in more detail later – ENERGOEFFECTIVNOST LLC, TEPLOENERGOPROEKTY LLC and ENERGOEFFECT LLC. But if we return to OAO Nizhnovatomenergosbyt, then according to the law, its debt should be compensated at the expense of other assets of Eurasian, in particular Rostovvodokanal.
And here the most interesting begins. On February 2, 2023, the bankruptcy trustee Anatoly Baranov, who was appointed to manage the bankruptcy of Nizhnovatomenergosbyt OJSC, stated in the Moscow Arbitration Court that, contrary to the specified interim measures, the controlling persons of Eurasian JSC could have taken actions aimed at reducing the value of property owned by JSC ” Eurasian, as well as its subsidiaries, including JSC Rostovvodokanal. In particular, despite the direct prohibition of the bailiffs, at the request of Vishnevsky, an extraordinary meeting of shareholders of Rostovvodokanal JSC was convened on February 2, at which the board of directors was re-elected.
According to the bankruptcy trustee, these actions around Rostovvodokanal JSC could be aimed at an unfair change of management with the aim of the subsequent withdrawal of assets, bypassing the rights and interests of Nizhnovatomenergosbyt JSC and affected creditors protected by the court. Simply put, Vishnevsky, regardless of the instructions of the regulatory authorities, may not want to pay debts and may hide assets that the court can reach. The bankruptcy trustee was heard, and in order to preserve the seized property, the shareholders of Rostovvodokanal were forbidden to make changes to the property status of the organization and change the composition of the management bodies.
It should be noted that even without debts in Rostovvodokanal, things are going, to put it mildly, not very … Boorish attitude, slowness, attempts to deceive – all this can be easily found on sites with reviews about the company’s work. On February 2 this year, four employees of Rostovvodokanal were detained for extorting bribes. German Vishnevsky immediately announced their dismissal without any special proceedings, but did not even bother to conduct a proper investigation into how, why and under whose “supervision” the criminal acts were carried out. Already on February 3, Vishnevsky spoke about a new “attempt to raider capture” of Rostovvodokanal. According to him, employees associated with Alfa Group are now interested in the enterprise.
New Hope?
Natalya Oskina, a deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, has repeatedly called on law enforcement agencies to analyze the situation, since Evraziysky did not fulfill his promises, while taking good soft loans, but did not keep his promises to restore networks and provide citizens with quality water.
In September 2023, elections to the Regional Legislative Assembly will be held in Rostov-on-Don. The problem of clean drinking water in the city and its control by dubious semi-bankrupt structures can become a very big headache for the party in power, the governor and their curators in the federal center. The question remains open on the agenda – how the manager of the company, who was officially fired back in November 2021, against the will of the shareholders, city authorities and residents, essentially takes and continues to manage a strategic asset and do whatever he sees fit. Where are the law enforcement agencies looking while Rostovites are content with low-quality water from an almost collapsed water canal?