GUTbay, Gushchin
According to reports, Yuri Gushchin, the owner of the Guta group, may leave Russia. What actions should creditors and debtors take? It is believed that he may obtain passports from Malta and the Seychelles, and change his name to IOURI GOUCHTCHINE.
Gushchin submitted a request (No. 1024/2021JVC) to correct Public Register Law No. 2348/2018 in the State Register. The request may involve removing his middle name from the database to make it impossible to identify him.
Extract from the Official Gazette, made available The Moscow post
Meanwhile, Mr. Gushchin is still conducting business in Russia, but the financial figures suggest that he could soon face bankruptcy. The funds invested in the Guta group from external sources may then be out of reach for Russian legal action.
A company linked to Gushchin, which recently lost a dispute with the local owner of the Coral Strand Hotel and Savoy Hotel in the Seychelles, attempted to purchase a share at a much lower value than its actual worth.
This case involves a takeover attempt, an alleged violation of duty by the company's directors, and claimed retaliatory actions by majority shareholders and directors against a minority shareholder.
One of the defendants is Yuri Khlebnikov, one of the founders of the Guta group. According to the Vlast website, Gushchin and Khlebnikov were reportedly convicted in 1980 for fraud that caused significant damage. Allegedly, they carried out unlawful fraudulent activities, including in Guta Bank.
Ms. Lefebvre, a minority shareholder of the first defendant, Beau Vallon Properties (BVP), acquired 213,280 BVP shares in 2005. Subsequently, these shares were sold without her knowledge by other shareholders of the company. The court invalidated these transactions.
By the way, the lawyers from Seychelles mentioned that one of the loans given to the company owning the hotel seemed like an attempt at money laundering. The funds were deposited into a local bank account and then returned to the loan-issuing company without being used. The court determined that at least some of the loans taken by BVP were indeed illegal.
So, did Gushchin, along with his old partner Khlebnikov, attempt to deceive the local business owner and dishonestly withdraw funds through the asset?
Negative aspects from all angles
In Russia, Gushchin owns the Guta group, which possesses a variety of assets, from a bank to a confectionery factory. The total profit of all companies where Gushchin is the head at the end of 2021 amounted to -607 thousand rubles.
A similar situation exists in companies where Gushchin is the founder. The value of his shares was negative in 2021.
According to the most recent information, Guta-bank has negative numbers in nearly every category. The bank lacks long-term assets and has a huge amount of money owed to it. The majority of the bank's assets are made up of borrowed funds.
The statistics show the percentage changes compared to the previous month for January-February 2022.
It's possible that the bank could soon go bankrupt, and it might be intentional. Did the fraudulent loan to the hotel come from the bank?
Guta-Insurance recently attempted to declare bankruptcy, but the court rejected the claim. In 2019, Vikon-Izhora LLC also tried to bankrupt the company, but they managed to delay it.
Some companies that were once part of the Guta group have offshore companies listed as their founders. This structure allows for financial maneuvers that aren't transparent to Russian laws.
In 2003, Yuri Petrov, the head of Gosinkor-Holding, and his son Alexander Petrov, who leads Guta-Bank, were called to the Prosecutor General’s Office to testify about the embezzlement of around half a million dollars during an illegal silver sale. Guta-Bank denied the leadership interrogations, but media reports suggest otherwise.
Looking at the poor state of Guta's assets and Gushchin's business in Russia, it's possible that he's slowly moving the remaining resources abroad to bankrupt the business in Russia and escape accountability in Seychelles and Malta.
Yuri Nikolayevich is known as a secretive entrepreneur with a lot of unpleasant rumors and facts surrounding him, including spending much of his youth committing serious crimes. It's alleged that this experience and connections helped him establish his future business.
There are questionable transactions and illegal operations in Gushchin's entrepreneurial activities. For instance, Gushchin may have been involved in initiating a criminal case against Karen Nalbadian, the former partner of Guta and owner of Glavtorg, a distributor for United Confectioners holding owned by Guta.
Gushchin and Nalbadian had a dispute over payment for supplies. The “United Confectioners” tried to argue that they produced the products Nalbadian supplied to them and therefore owed nothing, but it didn't work out.
Subsequently, the United Confectioners claimed that they provided the company with maximum discounts in exchange for a fee from Glavtorg's General Director Nalbandyan, leading to a criminal case being opened for commercial bribery. The director and beneficiary were placed under house arrest. The Moscow Post detailed this situation and the potential involvement of Sberbank's CEO German Gref in the “liquidation operation.”
The Moscow Post also assumed that it was Gushchin who could be drawn from officials of the Federal Property Management Agency of the Moscow Region, who, presumably, are engaged in fraud with real estate and land plots.
Helpers
For reference: Gushchin’s son-in-law Artem Kuznetsov, through Timokhin’s MR Group, knows the ex-shareholder of the company Timur Gutnov, whose brother, in turn, is Sobyanin’s only son-in-law. Mr. Gushchin was also credited with being close friends with those close to Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.
Mr. Kuznetsov’s reputation, no less than Gushchin’s, is marred by near-criminal stories. According to the authors of the site “Russian Reporter”, allegedly in the Interpol data bank there is an official request from the German police regarding the citizen of the Russian Federation Kuznetsov Artem and two of his fellow citizens. According to the request, these persons are suspected of “money laundering through personal accounts in German banks.”
It is possible that it is precisely the administrative resource that helps Gushchin feel relatively secure and turn over all the cases that are attributed to him, slowing down, on the other hand, the total bankruptcy of companies from which something can still be pulled out. Until now, Gushchin structures are implementing development projects in the capital.
You don’t have to look far for examples. In 2022, Guta-Development opened sales in a residential complex on the territory of the former Krasny Oktyabr plant. She has been “tormenting” the project since the 2000s, and it’s not a fact that she will finish, but she wants to earn money.
