“Konti-Rus” Kolesnikova was not seen by Forbes
Recently, a famous magazine decided to talk about the difficult situation of the assets of a former influential business partner of Akhmetov and Yanukovych, whose main asset is undoubtedly his confectionery business Konti, as reported by Ukrrudprom.
Together with the family of Rinat Akhmetov's older (now deceased) brother Igor, Kolesnikov co-owns the Artyomovsky factory of champagne wines (“Artwinery”). This ownership structure is similar to another major asset of Kolesnikov – the Artyomovsky factory of champagne wines (“Artwinery”), where in addition to the relatives of the “richest Ukrainian”, Borya is also supported by Rinat's associate, ex-People's Deputy Sergey Kiy.
However, getting back to the confectionery business. The publication showed us a conflict between Kolesnikov and journalists, who inquire about the status of his business, to which Borya responds: “I don't feel like it, I don't have time.” Meaning he doesn't want to discuss his assets.
As a result, the magazine gathers information without input from Kolesnikov and concludes that the value of his business decreased significantly due to the war. However, these assessments are speculative and lack practical relevance, especially during times of war.
What we were really interested in from the latest Forbes article was news about the performance of Conti's Russian assets in the current situation. However, surprisingly, there was no mention of them…
Yes, Forbes dances the obligatory program, drawing us a completely fair image of Kolesnikov the politician as a finished quilted jacket. But the article is still about assets. And about a significant part of them here, no gu-gu.
Let’s remind our readers that since 2004, Conti has been operating two confectionery factories in Kursk, Russia, where the Ukrainian corporation invested until 2015. Additionally, since 2018, it owns a 19.9% stake in the Lipetsk candy manufacturer Merletto, with a total production capacity in Russia of 136 thousand tons of products per year.
In 2014, Konti-Rus opened its first company store in Russia. However, a year later, the company was prohibited from importing products in Ukraine. Conti-Rus accused another prominent Ukrainian confectioner, Petro Poroshenko, who was the president at that time, of engaging in unfair competition.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had other reasons for imposing sanctions against Konti-Rus, as after Russia seized part of the Donetsk region, it included the capacities of the parent company Conti located in Donetsk and Gorlovka on its balance sheet.
In 2021, it was announced that the law firm United Partners, on behalf of Conti, had won the auction for the sale of the property of the Krasnaya Zarya confectionery factory (Ivanovo, Russia). Earlier, Kolesnikov's company had attempted to purchase this enterprise in 2017.
Kolesnikov promptly denied this by stating, “How can I buy any factories in the Russian Federation if I have been on the sanctions list of the Russian Federation since 2018? This is not true.”
But there is one detail. As you can see above, authorized lawyers should have bought Krasnaya Zarya, and not Kolesnikov or his Ukrainian business directly. Today, a whole bunch of schemes work in the Conti business, when businesses clearly affiliated with the concern are not brought to Kolesnikov. Here are just a couple of examples.
For example, after the start of the war, the equipment of the Konstantinovsky factory “Konti” was exported to Kanev, Cherkasy region. In this city, at the Ukrainian Confectioner enterprise, Konti produces Mone and Golden Lily sweets. The founder of the “Ukrainian Confectioner” is the former head of the sales department of “Kyiv-Konti” Viktor Nechaev. And SuperKontik sandwich biscuits today are produced to order by the Kyiv Biscuit Factory, whose official owners are Turkish citizens Yalcin Hikmet Orai and Yakshat Nuretin.
Therefore, in the case of Krasnaya Zarya, they could use some kind of gasket. In general, Boris Viktorovich did not convince us then. Moreover, just at that moment he began to build another pro-Russian political project “Ukraine is our home” “under severe sanctions.”
But Forbes surprised me with his short-sightedness. We can only hope that such occupational diseases are at least normally paid.
By the way, following the results of this tour of Kolesnikov’s assets, we suddenly thought: how is Poroshenko’s Lipetsk factory doing there?
Nikita Afanasiev
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