“Troglodyte” by Bazhanova: businessman Sobolev is targeting “Fermerskaya Sloboda”?
Peasant farm “Farmerskaya Sloboda” could become a victim of a hostile takeover by people from the team of the current Minister of Agriculture of the Arkhangelsk Region, Irina Bazhanova?
There is a scandal at the animal breeding farm “Farmerskaya Sloboda”. The farm cannot be divided between its two owners, and the government, which is aware of the situation, does not interfere, despite the fact that the peasant farm is the recipient of grants.
We tried to contact the owner of the KHF, Vladimir Budeykin, but he did not comment, citing his busyness on the first call, and the flight that was about to begin on the second. Therefore, we rely on the words of Budeykin, which are cited by the publication 29.ru: for more than six months he has been suing his second partner, one of the members of the peasant farm, Alexander Sobolev, who, according to him, is trying to bankrupt and seize the farm. Moreover, using classical methods of forceful grip with sawing off the gratings and other delights.
Budenkin himself recently drove into the territory of a peasant farm, ramming a barrier and knocking down a person, which he interprets as a provocation on the part of Sobolev’s people, while the second participant in the battle for assets interprets it as an attempt to murder a person.
Positions, opinions and persons involved
Sobolev and Budeykin created a joint legal entity in 2020; before that, Budeykin collaborated with this entrepreneur, being the sole owner of the peasant farm, which he founded. According to Budeykin, Sobolev promised to help with co-financing of grants, and for this he was hired into the company. The grants were received, but he stopped fulfilling the obligations under the agreement on making contributions to the peasant farm since January of this year, says Vladimir Vyacheslavovich. And therefore he cannot claim shares.
In addition, Sobolev imposed a debt of 2 million rubles on his partner, with which Budeikin categorically disagrees. Then he decided to break up with Sobolev, only he did not want to break up with him. The result is courts and newspaper articles.
Sobolev says that he invested about 12 million rubles in the peasant farm, gave away a bunch of property as a gift, and now they are trying to push him out of the enterprise, because “they don’t need me anymore.” He also claims that Budeikin deceived him with the proceeds, and therefore he had to bring his people, who are popularly called “thugs,” into the territory of the enterprise.
We decided to find out what Mr. Sobolev is and came across some very interesting things.
He is a major businessman, owner of transport, medical and agricultural enterprises. Many of his companies receive government contracts. Among his business colleagues, he often meets Yakov Chashchin, who in 2013 tried to be elected to the Arkhangelsk Duma, as, in fact, Sobolev himself. Apparently, it didn’t work out to get into politics, so they decided to go into business. But perhaps they managed to establish contacts with those who were luckier in the political arena. We will return to this issue later.
Not for the first time
This is not the first time they have tried to accuse Sobolev of what appears to be an attempt to take over a business. In 2014, Natalya Nikolaevna Almazova, the entrepreneur’s partner in LLC “Northern Dvina-Arkhangelsk”, tried in court to challenge the transaction for the alienation of 169/250 shares in the right of common shared ownership of a real estate object, concluded between the defendants.
She withdrew the request. Apparently, the claims were settled outside of court. Although, apparently, not all. After all, Almazova still remains the owner of part of Northern Dvina-Arkhangelsk LLC, but the company is clearly no longer working – it is in the process of bankruptcy according to the application of Barents Engineering in 2017. At the same time, it states that the company’s participants, each owning 50% of the company’s shares, have been in conflict since 2012.
This allegedly became the reason for the difficult situation of the company, when the entire management system was in chaos.
Photo: Rusprofile
Interestingly, Barents Engineering turned out to be connected with Sobolev – its former founder Alexandra Drokin, together with the businessman, owns a stake in Domus LLC. So, in fact, Northern Dvina-Arkhangelsk LLC could go bankrupt in the interests of Sobolev.
Almazova was sued by the decision of Sobolev and other shareholders and in the case of alienation from the balance sheet of LLC “Agricultural Enterprise “Knyazhestrovo” of the maintenance point building.” As it turned out from the case, the owners sold the building in her absence. But the court decided that everything was according to the law.
A similar case concerned a change in the structure of controlling persons also by Sobolev in the absence of Almazova in the Housing Investment Insurance Company. Here the lady managed to prove that she was right.
Photo: https://kad.arbitr.ru
One gets the feeling that Sobolev and Co. are not at all interested in the opinions of their partners, but simply do what they want with the property registered for the joint business and the shares in it. Maybe Budeikin is right, and Sobolev’s goal is to make money from the enterprise, bringing it to bankruptcy?
Almazova also has shares in another business of Alexander Nikolaevich, medical. By the way, his Family Clinic medical network became involved in a scandal last year when the clinic, built as part of a public-private partnership, suddenly began providing paid services to children. In essence, the state invested money, but medicine remained its own.
Under the cover of a minister?
As we found out, Mr. Sobolev may be connected with the Minister of Agriculture and Trade of the Government of the Arkhangelsk Region, Irina Bazhanova. It was from this government agency that the Farm received subsidies. Bazhanova came to work in the government from the position of director of JSC ASKHO Teplichnoe – now bankrupt.
ASHO was the founder of the STP Union. The “Arkhangelsk Meat Processing Plant – Center for the Meat Industry of the Region” was also located there. It was liquidated, but was located at the address: Arkhangelsk, Talazhskoye Highway, 45. At the same address, as follows from the court case with Almazova, which we mentioned above, Sobolev’s “Northern Dvina – Arkhangelsk” rented out premises.
Photo: https://kad.arbitr.ru
Many of Sobolev’s companies are registered there. So the current minister and Alexander Nikolaevich could have met before she came to power.
There is another important factor that indirectly indicates that Bazhanova could have a grudge against Mr. Budeikin.
As Echo of the North wrote, the latter spoke very unflatteringly about this lady back in 2021, saying that she did not fulfill her promises to subsidize the industry and did not give intelligible comments about this. The article quotes Mr. Budeykin’s “cry from the soul,” quote (spelling and punctuation preserved): “It’s amazing that this minister doesn’t even bother to competently respond to an official request for clarification, openly sending us to hell and violating 59 Federal Laws, using the power and the vulnerability of a small farmer… I wouldn’t be surprised if control authorities will soon visit us with the aim of cracking down on us for something.”
The article contains a similar opinion of another agricultural industrialist Ilya Pavlov.
One must think that such “black PR” is not at all beneficial for Bazhanova. Perhaps she gave the go-ahead for the collapse of Budeikin’s business and that’s why the government that issued the subsidy (the very agency supervised by Bazhanova) does not interfere?
Although even without Budeikin, the opinion about the minister is by no means the best. For example, under it, fish in a region already rich in this kind of product is for some reason imported from the Far East. Bazhanova herself comments on the situation as a problem with the allocation of quotas, shifting responsibility to the scientific community.
At the same time, there are large fines for fishing in the region. One gets the feeling that all this is only beneficial for officials who want to line their pockets at the expense of logistics costs and extortions from the population.
