Vyacheslav Boklin, the financial manager of the ex-State Duma deputy Ildar Samiyev, intends to challenge the deal to alienate a 50% stake in the Zodchiy Invest company as part of the businessman’s bankruptcy proceedings. At the end of December, he filed a corresponding application with the Moscow Arbitration Court. It was not possible to contact Samiev’s representative, Boklin did not provide comments to Vedomosti.
Zodchiy Invest is the developer of the first transport interchange hub (TPU) in Moscow near the station. m. “Planernaya”. The Moscow City Hall signed a contract for its construction with Garant Bauinvestition GmbH in the summer of 2004. The latter attracted Zodchiy Invest as an investor. Zodchiy Invest invested about $100 million in this project. At the end of 2010, a bus station with waiting rooms and transitions from the metro station to the passenger boarding platforms for buses and trolleybuses, as well as a six-story building with shopping galleries, were built as part of the TPU. Their total area is about 50,000 sq. m. How many of them belongs to “Architect Invest” is not exactly known, in “SPARK-Interfax” it is indicated that he owns only 20,468 square meters. m.
The company itself was originally owned on a parity basis by two companies, one of which was controlled by Samiyev, and the other by his partner Vitaly Danilenko. In 2009, a conflict broke out between them, as a result of which Danilenko became the owner of Zodchiy Invest. According to SPARK-Interfax, now he owns 99% of the shares in this company, and from the materials of the arbitration courts it follows that disputes between businessmen were completed back in 2015. In “Architect Invest”, as well as in the company “Flower Design Studio” Home collection “(it is also owned by Danilenko) did not respond to Vedomosti’s requests.
Samiev was declared bankrupt in the summer of 2021, according to the materials of the Unified Register of Bankruptcy Information. Its main creditor is the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA), the debt to it is about 5.5 billion rubles. The businessman himself is known as an investor in the elite residential complex Knightsbridge Private Park in Khamovniki, as well as a partner of the ex-head of Optima Development Albert Khudoyan in the project of the Prime Park complex on Leningradsky Prospekt.
If the transaction on the alienation of the stake in Zodchiy Invest is declared invalid, it must return to the bankruptcy estate, says Dmitry Galantsev, managing partner of the Propositum Law Office. According to him, if the current owner has time to resell it, then he will have to return the value of this share there at the time of alienation. Ekaterina Tokareva, a partner at the Pen & Paper Bar Association, recalls that one of the requirements of the financial manager is to return the record of ownership of 50% of the company back to Samiyev. She adds that if the application of the financial manager is satisfied, then the businessman in this case will have a debt to the current owner of this share. He will have a chance to buy the lot at the auction, but then he will have to compete with other applicants, if they appear, adds Sofya Volkova, lawyer at Asterisk law firm.
Lawyers interviewed by Vedomosti, however, believe that it will be difficult to challenge such a deal. The period of suspicion in such cases is three years before the adoption of the bankruptcy petition, Galantsev points out. According to him, in this regard, even with the formal observance of the statute of limitations, the chances of a positive result are extremely low. He points out that in judicial practice there were cases when the courts granted such applications, but these are rather exceptions to the rule. The current owner of Zodchy Invest is involved in this case as a co-respondent, so he is not deprived of the opportunity to object in court, Tokarev draws attention. If he proves that the transaction was made at market value, and the debtor at that time did not have signs of insolvency, then the financial manager will most likely be refused, summarizes Galantsev.
Bankruptcy and arbitration managers quite often challenge the transactions of bankrupts. For example, the Moscow Arbitration Court has already satisfied Boklin’s applications to invalidate transactions for the sale of a 37.5% stake in the company that owns the Savelovsky business park to the minority shareholder of Magnit Alexei Bogachev, as well as three plots of 3.5 hectares in the village. Zhukovka. In 2021, the arbitration manager of Shchuka JSC, which owned the shopping and entertainment center of the same name with a total area of 100,300 sq. m at st. m. “Shchukinskaya”, challenged in court the sale of this object by the co-founder of “Donstroy” Maxim Blazhko to the shareholder of O1 Properties – Riverstretch Trading & Investments. The latter, as a result, was able to keep the complex for itself, paying off debts to creditors of JSC “Shchuka”.
