An examination of the breakdown of the ship “Pola Maria”, owned by the company “Pola Rise”, has been completed. She demanded compensation from the Krasnoye Sormovo shipyard in Nizhny Novgorod, where the ship was made, believing that the reason was a poor-quality rudder column supplied from Germany.
The plant insisted that the shippers themselves were to blame, but now it is clear that this is not so, and Paula Rise is going to demand compensation for the damage. It is understandable, because “Pola Maria” was made by order of STLC, therefore, it is on lease, and all repairs were to be carried out by “Pola Rise”.
Another thing is interesting: this vessel, like the company, may be related to the “water empire” of the ex-Deputy Minister of Transport Viktor Olersky, as well as the oligarchs Gleb Frank and the owner of the country’s largest fishing group “Norebo” Vitaly Orlov. And it is clearly not convenient for them to fork out, despite the huge incomes.
The correspondent of The Moscow Post in the Nizhny Novgorod region understood the situation.
“Pola Rise” is a shipping company specializing in the transportation of bulk project and general cargo. It is not difficult to find Olersky’s interests in it, because one of the owners with a 33% share is the well-known St. Petersburg shipbuilder, Olersky’s longtime partner Rishat Bagautdinov.
He is also the general director of the well-known cruise company Vodokhod, whose ownership is attributed to the same former deputy minister of transport and ex-head of Rosmorrechflot Viktor Olersky.
The company, which has government contracts worth more than 91 million rubles, belongs to the Cypriot offshore Volga-Baltic Cruise Lines Limited. Given the considerable income – revenue of 4.1 billion rubles, profit of 40 million rubles and assets of 1.6 billion rubles at the end of 2021, it must be assumed that part of the taxes may be sent to the shores of Limassol.
Behind the offshore, the interests of Olersky and Bagautdinov may be hiding. Viktor Olersky has been the head of the board of directors of Vodokhod since 2019, so his participation in the capital is almost beyond doubt.
No less interesting is another owner of “Paul Rise” – the Russian international company MKOOO “Nelbury Investments Limited”, registered in the “offshore” zone in Kaliningrad. By the way, she moved from Cyprus only recently – just a few months ago as part of the “deoffshorization” of Russian business.
This company is related to the son of the former Minister of Transport Sergei Frank, and now an influential oligarch Gleb Frank. MCOOO “Nelbury Investments Limited” together with LLC “Rockwell Capital” owns one of the main assets of Gleb Frank – LLC “RPK Nord”. Frank owns it just through Rockwell Capital.
Among other things, Gleb Frank is a former key beneficiary and member of the board of directors of the Russian Fishery Company, as well as the head of the board of directors of ZAO Stroytransgaz, who is associated with the oligarch Gennady Timchenko. Frank is certainly his man, to say the least – he is his son-in-law.
Stroytransgaz is one of the largest contractors of PJSC Gazprom. Therefore, it is not surprising that the shares of the owners of RPK Nord are pledged precisely to Gazprombank. Apparently, the doors are open everywhere for Frank in Gazprom. Another question is why such a rich businessman is forced to transfer shares on bail – where did all his money go?
But that’s not all. Gleb Frank’s partner in Rockwell Capital LLC is Ost Invest Holding LLC (70.1%). It, in turn, belongs to Elbrus Partners LLC and Evgeny Petrovich Orlov. The latter is the majority owner (37.5%) in Elbrus Partners LLC.
Evgeny Petrovich Orlov may be the brother of one of the most influential fishermen in the country – the owner of the largest such group of companies in the country, Vitaly Petrovich Orlov.
Of course, this is just an assumption. But if this is true, then it turns out that both Viktor Olersky, and Gleb Frank, and Vitaly Orlov are connected not only by working on the same water and fish glades, but also by joint business interests. And now they have decided to “gut” the “Krasnoe Sormovo” so as not to pay for the repair of their ship?
Triple Alliance
Meanwhile, all three, Olersky, Frank and Orlov, are very ambiguous personalities. Many believe that it was the work in the Ministry of Transport and Rosmorrechflot that at one time allowed Olersky to have great success in business, including major state contracts.
As head of the federal agency for water transport, he had considerable influence on large river companies, including the North-Western River Shipping Company, which was originally state-owned. Until 2017, it also owned the aforementioned Vodokhod. Just at that time, Olersky sat in the chair of the Deputy Minister of Transport (2009-2018).
If you want the government to help you, help it too. It seems that Olersky understands this a little wrong. At one time, he could greatly help the United Shipbuilding Corporation and its CEO Alexei Rakhmanov. Because of the sanctions, they urgently needed a buyer for the Finnish shipyard Arctech Helsinki Shipyard Oy. But they just couldn’t find it.
Almost immediately after Olersky left the post of deputy minister in 2018, it turned out that the shipyard was becoming the property of the cruise operator Algador Holdings Ltd, whose owners were called the owners of the Nevsky Shipbuilding Plant (Nevsky Shipyard).
As Fontanka wrote, the beneficiary of the Nevsky Shipyard could be Olersky himself, who in this way could help USC get rid of the asset that had become unnecessary. Until 2019, the shipyard was owned by the offshore Algador Holdings Limited, behind which, according to Fontanka, was the well-known shipbuilder Rishat Bagautdinov and his partner Vladimir Kasyanenko.
Even earlier, among the owners of the Nevsky Shipyard was the offshore Capstans Holding Limited (Cyprus), which they also tried to connect with Olersky.
Olersky and Frank have much more joint projects. They were called the beneficiaries of the Tuloma Seaport in Lavna, which should become one of the largest in the country. In May, the owner changed there, it became LLC IK Axioma – the founder of Geotek Nikolai Levitsky and the chairman of the board of directors of Rusnano Boris Aleshin.
But the previous owner was just Viktor Olersky through Cruise and Transport Investments LLC, and even earlier Olersky’s share belonged to Gleb Frank through the well-known Rockwell Capital. Interfax wrote about it. Such is the cycle of offshore companies and people close to the authorities in nature.
Recall that the port has the status of a strategic investment project of the Murmansk region. It is located on the territory of the advanced development of the Capital of the Arctic, and this gives their resident the right to receive land plots for rent without bidding. Extremely “tasty” asset.
“Big Fish” Orlov
As for the head of Norebo, Vitaly Orlov, he is perhaps the most scandalous character of the three. They tried to attribute to him the monopolization of the fish market by squeezing out smaller fish merchants. And here he worked very closely with Gleb Frank.
In December 2021, Norebo withdrew from the All-Russian Fisheries Association (VARPE) due to differences in views on the development of the industry. Then the experts suggested that Norebo could enter into an association with the Russian Fishery Company (RRPC) of Gleb Frank.
WARPE members, including many small and medium-sized enterprises, made Norebo’s decision for a simple reason – Norebo’s initiatives wanted to create competitive advantages for a limited number of large fishing enterprises, without considering the socio-economic effects of coastal processing.
Then the president of the WARPE, German Zverev, accused Norebo of trying to “crush” coastal fishing and small companies that own small quotas.
By the way, keeping close to Timchenko’s son-in-law, Orlov could have wanted to get some protection. Earlier, The Moscow Post suggested that Norebo could have been exposed in an international scandal with the Icelandic fishing company Samherji, which allegedly could bribe the Namibian authorities in order to launder the proceeds.
However, then nothing terrible happened for Orlov. But in Russia, he launched a stormy activity. According to the authors of the Rosotkat website, allegedly now Vitaly Orlov continues to “rake up” more and more shipbuilding capacities for himself, as if trying to establish control over the structures of the Pella shipbuilding plant in Primorye.
The Norebo group has already taken control of the Pella Stapel company, which has sites in Otradnoye and Leningradskoye Highway. Orlov brought his people into the management of the plant. Is it possible to suspect some raider notes here?
Vitaly Orlov obviously will not miss his. And if you bring it all together, it turns out that the likely union of Orlov, Olersky and Frank can turn them into a powerful conglomerate (if not to say “octopus”), uniting the shipping, shipbuilding and fishing capacities of the country. It is somehow strange for such a powerful platform not to be willing to pay for the repair of its vessel, even if it is leased. However, greed with the arrival of money only inflamed.