Billions of embezzlements preceded the declaration of self-bankruptcy of the enterprise?
The largest shipbuilding company in Primorye, the Vostochnaya Verf plant, filed an application for self-bankruptcy with the arbitration court. Despite assurances from officials that the plant is ready to receive new orders and that there are no problems with paying salaries, the situation does not look so optimistic: last year, Vostochnaya Verf declared losses in the billions, its employees are leaving, military orders are practically curtailed, and work continues only in areas of civil shipbuilding. The enterprise repeatedly had serious problems with the fulfillment of contractual obligations: for example, there was a delay in the construction of two border patrol boats for the FSB, and the Ministry of Defense generally withdrew the contract worth 21 billion rubles and demanded the return of the advance payment in the amount of 800 million. The situation is aggravated by a corporate conflict: this year, part of the shareholders tried to challenge in court the appointment of Oleg Zubakhin as CEO, a former co-owner of a pig farm, far from shipbuilding issues. His predecessor, ex-deputy of the Primorye Legislative Assembly and shareholder of Vostochnaya Verf, Gennady Lazarev, twice found himself at the center of high-profile corruption scandals. So, last year, he announced that he had information about the theft of more than 1 billion rubles from the enterprise and asked the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Primorye, Major General Oleg Stefankov, to initiate a criminal case on this fact. At the same time, the former acting general director of the plant, Alexander Lysenko, accused Lazarev himself of credit fraud, and explained his dismissal by refusing to participate in them. Experts attribute the current critical financial situation of Eastern Shipyard and its possible bankruptcy, among other things, to economic sanctions and being outside the framework of large specialized associations, such as the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) headed by Alexei Rakhmanov. But the USC structures, despite regularly receiving state contracts, have enough of their own problems, among them billions of dollars in losses, as well as fires on ships under construction and repair, which may be associated with hiding traces of large-scale theft.
Vostochnaya Verf: did something go wrong?
shipyard “Eastern Shipyard” filed an application for self-bankruptcy with the Primorsky Territory Arbitration Court.
Sergei Kalitin.
The official specified that the plant continues to fulfill existing contracts for the construction of ships in accordance with the schedule and is ready to take on new orders. According to Interfax, the company is currently working on a contract under the investment quota program for the construction of six vessels for the extraction of crabs and their processing. To develop this area, the company became the owner of the registered in Vladivostok in June 2020 LLC Vostochnaya Verf – civil shipbuilding.
JSC “Vostochnaya Verf” is one of the leading shipbuilding enterprises of the Primorsky Territory: in total, over 400 ships for the Navy, border forces and fishing organizations were launched here; more than 30 units of military equipment were exported to eight countries of the world (including Iraq, China and Vietnam). The portfolio of state contracts of the plant exceeds 15.3 billion rubles.
At the end of last year, a sharp deterioration in the financial performance of the shipyard was noted: with revenues of 4.83 billion rubles her loss was 2.15 billion. For comparison: in 2020, revenue was declared in 3 billion and profit in 363 thousand. Today, the plant does not have enough funds to pay for its own obligations. RIA Novosti, citing its own sources, reports that this year employees began to leave the enterprise en masse, besides, work here is carried out only in the field of civil shipbuilding, while military orders are practically curtailed.
Corporate conflict with the “pig smell”
It turns out that the situation is far from being as optimistic as officials assure: they say that wages are paid at the plant without delay, and tax deductions are made regularly … There is, as it turned out, a shadow side of the issue, which they prefer not to bring to the attention of the general public . That’s just that in the “Eastern shipyard” “not everything is calm”, the media wrote earlier.
So, last February, the online publication “Competition.Ru» reported on a growing corporate conflict: the company’s shareholders Igor and Olga Miroshnichenko decided to challenge the decision of the board of directors to hold an extraordinary meeting of shareholders held on December 29, 2021 in the Primorye Arbitration Court. Then the head of the enterprise, a former deputy of the Primorsky Legislative Assembly and the ex-rector of the Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service, resigned ahead of schedule Gennady Lazarev (According to affiliate data for the 2nd half of 2021, he owned 29% of the shares of the plant).
Lazarev was replaced as CEO Oleg Zubakhinwhich actually caused a negative reaction from the Miroshnichenko tandem, who decided through the court to include “their” person in the list of candidates for the vacant position Alexandra Lysenko and sent to arbitration, one after the other, two claims against Vostochnaya Verf JSC. However, the “coup” plan failed: the court denied the applicants’ claims twice.
Commenting on the “personnel leapfrog” at the plant, the Far Eastern business portal “Zolotoy Most” emphasized that in two years Zubakhin was already the fourth general director of the shipyard, but the result of a frequent change of leadership could be its shutdown. The publication described the critical situation at the enterprise. So, with a delay of two years (in 2021 instead of 2019), two patrol boats of the FSB of the Russian Federation “Svetlyaki” were handed over, which should have entailed penalties in the amount of about 1 billion rubles.
The deadlines for completing the construction of two tankers for the Ministry of Defense were repeatedly postponed, and the allocated funds in the amount of 7.5 billion and 4.5 billion rubles were spent. In 2020, the military department terminated one of the contracts for 21 billion rubles and demanded to return the transferred advance in the amount of 800 million.
It would seem that with the final approval of Zubakhin as general director, the situation should normalize, but there were big doubts about this, since the new leader initially seemed far from shipbuilding issues. The fact is that earlier Zubakhin was engaged in … animal husbandry: he was one of the co-owners of a large seaside pig farm Mercy Trade. Are we witnessing today the deplorable results of such a cardinal change of specialization?
“Missing” billion: Lysenko vs. Lazarev
Note that the short “reign” of Gennady Lazarev was preceded by a very remarkable incident. In March last year, during a regular meeting of the regional Legislative Assembly, held via video link with the participation of the then head of the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Primorye, Major General Oleg Stefankov, Lazarev publicly spoke about the financial fraud that took place in the Eastern Shipyard. According to him, during the audit for 2011-2016. revealed the facts of the theft of funds intended for the implementation of the state defense order, for a total amount of about 300 millionas well as more 1 billion rubleswithdrawn in favor of third parties.
The deputy drew the attention of the chief of police to the fact that the relevant statements were received by law enforcement agencies, but the criminal case was never initiated. The general promised to sort it out, but the issue, apparently, ended up “hanging in the air”, and last July Stefankov “washed his hands”, leaving for a well-deserved retirement. Journalists hastened to pay attention to the following important circumstance: in his speech, Lazarev preferred not to mention that he is the chairman of the board of directors of the plant, and together with persons close to him controls 62% of the company’s shares.
Perhaps the public speech of the parliamentarian was caused by the desire for personal insurance. As the same Golden Bridge wrote, back in November 2020, the former acting general director of Vostochnaya Verf, already familiar to us, turned to the Pervomaisky District Prosecutor’s Office of Vladivostok Alexander Lysenko. In his statement, he not only complained about the illegality of the dismissal, but also talked about financial scams in which Lazarev was allegedly involved.
Lysenko claimed that the deputy suggested that he, as the acting head of the plant, sign a compensation agreement for a guarantee to the bank. Lazarev himself was supposed to act as a guarantor, the company to receive a loan, and Lysenko, in turn, was to receive payments in the amount of 360 million rubles in year. For how long it was planned to get a loan, what was its total amount and what the deputy needed money for – one can only guess. Lysenko considered the refusal to sign a dubious contract as the actual reason for his dismissal. So maybe, speaking in the Legislative Assembly and talking about large-scale embezzlement, Lazarev tried to give the color of the “story with a billion” that was beneficial to him?
Being in the USC is not a solution to the problem?
Thus, the bankruptcy of Eastern Shipyard could well be the result of financial fraud. In particular, we can talk about scams with funds received for the execution of government contracts (for example, from the Ministry of Defense). Meanwhile, experts are speculating in the press about the negative impact of Western sanctions on “single enterprises,which are not included in the perimeter of a large shipbuilding corporation, such as USC”. Say, today they have to solve their economic problems on their own, including issues with the order.
USC mention – “United Shipbuilding Corporation” – in this context, it looks far from accidental. We also recall that the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Primorye, Sergei Kalitin, called the search for a new investor one of the main tasks facing the enterprise during its recovery. Does not claim this role headed by Alexey Rakhmanov corporation?
Such a development of events may seem like a “salvation” only at first glance, because things at the USC enterprises are also far from being the best. This can be confirmed by the public scolding given to Rakhmanov by the head of state last August, during a meeting dedicated to the development of the shipbuilding industry. Then Vladimir Putin expressed dissatisfaction with the large number of unprofitable USC contracts, and Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov announced the forthcoming financial audit of the corporation’s structures involved in civil shipbuilding.
Despite the fact that the current year in USC has been declared a “year of efficiency”, the losses of its numerous “daughters” from year to year amount to billions. For example, the St. Petersburg plant “Northern shipyard” in 2021 went “in the red” by 3.5 billion rubles. Losses Vyborg shipyard for the same period were 1.9 billion. Losses in the amount 7.8 billion declared at the end of 2020 Baltic plant. But each of these enterprises has a solid portfolio of government contracts! It turns out that contracts do not save the situation?
Let us also recall the repeated accidents on ships under construction (fires on the Mechanic Maslak trawler, Provorny corvette, Viktor Chernomyrdin icebreaker, etc.) and delays in project implementation (repair of the Admiral Kuznetsov and Admiral Nakhimov cruisers , construction of icebreakers “Siberia” and “Ural”, etc.). By the way, the media voiced a version according to which the reason for the fires could be the desire of USC top managers to hide traces of large-scale theft. As we can see, Alexei Rakhmanov has even more problems today than the co-owners of Vostochnaya Verf. Although one gets the impression that these problems grow from the same corruption root.