Volin’s trick: did the debt issue reveal the schematosis?
How to give a loan to your own company, and then take out a bank loan on behalf of the company to pay off this debt? Ask Volin.
Businessman Oleg Volin, who is sensitive to his reputation and was mentioned together with Vasily Boyko-Veliky in the investigation of the source “Non-market relations of the Volin family,” also, apparently, passionately loves…money. In the course of an ongoing series of investigations, the editors discovered a number of interesting facts, including a very interesting financial scheme about the beneficiaries lending to their company “UniversalResource” with the subsequent issuance of a credit line with Sberbank in order to repay this debt. In this case, no tax authority will say that there is a withdrawal of funds, because legally everything is in order. And, if it seemed to you that there was a smell of fraud somewhere, then it seemed to you.
Moreover, the director and at that time co-owner of UniversalResource Volin raised his salary to a very decent amount (not every official has that much), but all these tricks turned into long corporate showdowns in court, since not all owners agreed with this. For those who disagreed, the matter ended sadly – they lost their share.
Let us remember that the editors published an investigation, after which Mr. Volin was very offended and went to court, to the tax office (what happened there?), except that he didn’t get to Sportloto. This Mr. did not like the fact that, among other things, he was associated with Mr. Boyko-Veliky, that he was involved in a case of embezzlement and legalization of about 200 million rubles from the Credit Express bank, and was previously involved in a case of land fraud.
At the same time, in court, our hero played with words in a very amusing way, having thought up something that was not in the article and, as it were, distancing himself from Boyko-Veliky. Although some connection to the latter’s close circle can be seen in Ms. Volina. For example, the Russian Heir Foundation for the Promotion of Enlightenment and Education, established by her, was created with the participation of Alexey Anatolyevich Averyanov, and is headed by Anastasia Averyanova, a former top manager.
“House of Russian Clothes by Valentina Averyanova” and the daughter of the head of this house. Moreover, Averyanova, together with Volina, was the owner of Golden Kremlin Mile Real Estate LLC and Slavyansky Dvor Agency LLC (until 2019).
Earlier, the Kommersant newspaper called the Averyanovs relatives of Boyko-Veliky’s lawyer and partner Alexey Averyanov.
Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru
“Lonya Mackintosh” in action?
That is, Mr. Volin’s connections with Boyko-Veliky are embarrassing, but the fact that he was going to take money for the construction of a shopping center from Leonid Bilunov – the full namesake of the famous “Lenny Mackintosh” in certain circles, who has been living in France for some time now?
Business relations with a certain Bilunov are confirmed by the materials of the court case. It follows from them that in September 2011, Oleg Volin, Andrei Oskolkov and Leonid Bilunov signed a tripartite agreement, according to which the latter was to contribute 33.3% of his capital investments in the construction of a shopping center carried out by UniversalResource LLC. At the same time, Mr. Bilunov was promised profit from the activities of the shopping center in the amount of 15% of total income. Volin and Oskolkov argued in court that “Bilunov L.F. did not fulfill his obligations under the Agreement, did not make investments in the construction of the shopping center, and ignored the demands sent to him on February 13, 2019 to pay for the cost of investments in the construction of the shopping center.” But there was an attempt to get money from Bilunov!
The Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper once wrote in detail about the full namesake of Volin’s business partner, “Lena Makintosh,” and, in short, “a man with a rich criminal past spent about 15 years behind bars,” stood at the origins of Russian banking, close knew many oligarchs, became one of the first millionaires of the era of “primitive accumulation of capital,” but left for France.
Photo: kad.arbitr.ru
In the history of the development of Mr. Volin’s business, in particular, in the same LLC “UniversalResource” that owns the “Petrovsky Market” with revenue of 0.5 billion rubles, there was a lady like Galia Serazhetdinova. The latter, Volin and Oskolkov, in the materials of the above-mentioned lawsuit, which deprived the lady of a share in the LLC for the fact that she allegedly did not participate in financing the construction of the shopping center (should she? she did not sign any agreements with you), were called a member of the Bilunov family. By the way, that court case indirectly confirmed that Bilunov, associated with Volin, is the same Bilunov as in the article about “Lena Mackintosh”. Both live in France.
Photo: kad.arbitr.ru
At the same time, the entire evidence base in court was built on a certain affiliation with Bilunov and the alleged fact that it was the new owner of the share who had to fulfill his obligations under the agreement of 2011. But, excuse me, the investment agreement does not contain Serazhetdinova’s signature and she, as an individual individual, did not undertake such obligations. Moreover, it is directly stated in the court decision that “the deadline for fulfilling obligations to make investments by L.F. Bilunov in construction was not established.” The whole basis was built on the fact that Serazhetdinova is supposedly the common-law wife and mother of Bilunov’s children, because, they say, he is the beneficiary. That is, as an individual, the wife cannot conduct business with those with whom the spouse has a business relationship?
Such conclusions, in our opinion, smell rather bad. But in the end, Serazhetdinova was deprived of her share through the courts. Although maybe the question is not that there were no financial injections, but that Serazhetdinova at one time in court protested against some of Volin’s financial manipulations?
For example, it was she who initiated a lawsuit in which she demanded to cancel the decision to increase Volin’s salary as a director and return the millions paid (and for 2017 alone – this is 28.9 million rubles), considering that everything received as labor payments actually masked the distribution of net profit . Between 2012 and 2017, Volin’s salary was increased twice, reaching a salary of 2.6 million rubles and a bonus of 5% of net profit for the year. At the same time, at general meetings, having a larger share than Serazhetdinov, Volin the founder (66.7%) naturally voted for an increase in the salary of Volin the director. The first instance satisfied Serazhetdinova’s claim, but rejected the subsequent one.
In general, the story with Bilunov – Serazhetdinova is an interesting touch to the portrait of Mr. Volin’s business. For example, we had a question: why was Bilunov’s share suddenly transferred to Serazhetdinova? So as not to reveal connections with the same Bilunov? That is, we are not against taking this money, but we will modestly keep silent about its origin, so it turns out?
It would not be amiss to add some touches to the portrait of Mr. Oskolkov. He was previously a deputy of the State Council of Udmurtia for three convocations. In addition, he appeared in The Moscow Post as the hero of a publication about the land issue of a team of Izhevsk oligarchs (together with Shutov and Kotov), whose structures were associated with the family of the former head of Udmurtia Volkov. Oskolkov and a group of partners also became buyers of part of the KFC restaurant chain.
Loan scheme in an entertaining format
The court materials also mentioned a very interesting story about the lending scheme for the company of Volin and Oskolkov. We will also dwell on this in more detail.
Watch your hands carefully. You are the owner of a company and lend a large sum of money to your own legal entity, then you, being also the director of this legal entity, arrange a line of credit with the bank so that the legal entity pays off the debt to you. There is a nuance here: according to the law, you cannot simply take a large amount of money from an LLC and withdraw it into your pocket, the same tax office will not approve, but if you took out a loan for your company, and then at the expense of loan funds taken for a legal entity and which you repay with the legal entity has arrived, this debt has been repaid, then everything is in order. No one will find fault and say that there is a banal withdrawal of funds from the company. After all, according to the law, there are no violations.
As follows from the materials of the court case, again according to the claim of Serazhetdinova, who was then still one of the participants, Volin and Oskolkov and then Universal LLC (later merged into UniversalResource) entered into a whole stack of interest-free loan agreements. Moreover, until a certain date, the loans were interest-free, and then the company owed debt + interest. In total, 335 million rubles were spent under these schemes during the period from 2008 to 2013.
In 2016, the LLC opened a credit line with Sberbank to repay the multimillion-dollar debts of the legal entity to Volin and Oskolkov. Five land plots and 37 real estate properties in the Moscow region, estimated at 1.125 billion rubles, are pledged as collateral. As a result, the legal entity received the money and paid these gentlemen: 200 million rubles to Volin and 30 million rubles to Oskolkov. How do you like this somersault? Well done! We have only one question: to what account are the loans actually credited, which, as the defendants claimed, they allocated to the legal entity? Could anyone be convinced of their real, so to speak, existence?
Photo: https://kad.arbitr.ru
Serazhetdinova considered such a scheme to violate her rights, but, alas, she lost the trial and was unable to challenge the loan taken to repay the loans of Volin and Oskolkov.
Tax issues
Today, Volin is the only owner of UniversalResource, that is, he can raise his salary as he wants, without the co-owners trying to challenge it, and he can now safely issue loans to himself. Who will be held accountable?
Judging by the data from Rusprofile, Oskolkov left the list of owners in 2020, but there is an interesting nuance – in 2021, UniversalResource showed a net loss of 21.4 million rubles. The report claimed that redemption costs caused the actual value of the share to exceed its nominal value. Oskolkov was paid 200 million rubles for his share. This is interesting because income tax is paid based on profit, that is, the difference between income and expenses. How to reduce tax? You can, for example, increase expenses by paying the same salary to your loved one or paying a share to a former business partner. Then the money does not go to the budget in the form of taxes, but for the above needs.
Photo: https://bo.nalog.ru/
By the way, the tax office was already interested in the work of “UniversalResource”, having assessed additional property tax after the audit. True, Volin fought off arrears in court; the Federal Tax Service was unable to defend its position, although it tried very hard.
Plus, again, in our opinion, there is a strange thing: the company’s report for 2020 states that the settlement with Oskolkov was carried out in full (all 200 million rubles) – by offsetting counter obligations and transferring funds. So, where did the 2021 losses supposedly related to share payments come from? In our opinion, there is something to think about, the tax authorities.
And here’s what else interested us: as soon as Volin became the sole owner of the asset, the costs of servicing the market or production costs dropped sharply – from about 200 million per year in 2020 to 115 million rubles in 2022. Management costs were also reduced – from 135 to 109 million rubles. What, Oleg Bulatovich, when the dividends are only for your loved one, do you want them to be bigger? For reference: dividends for 2021 are 175.9 million rubles.
Another nuance that we paid attention to is that over five years the payment of the following taxes has decreased: on the property of organizations by 4.6 times, from 16 million rubles in 2017 to 3.5 million rubles in 2021, land tax – from 5. 1 to 3.3 million rubles, respectively. At the same time, the transport tax increased – from 152 to 483 thousand rubles. Has Mr. Wolin acquired an SUV?
Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru
In general, loving money is not forbidden, but this must be done exclusively with an eye to the law and not forget about the moral standards accepted in society.
