There is a lot of money and interest involved in the case of the former top manager of the Samolet Group of Companies.
According to The Moscow Post correspondent, Alexander Lefel, who is the vice-president of one of the biggest developers in the country (GK Samolet) and former top manager of the largest Russian developer (GK PIK), was released from the pre-trial detention center under house arrest, despite the prosecutor’s office protesting and demanding for him to remain in custody. The prosecutor’s office argued that he has dual citizenship, accounts in foreign banks, and can safely leave the country and evade justice.
After leaving the position of Vice President of PIK Group in 2021, Lefel joined the Samolet Group of Companies in a similar role and took on responsibility for regional development. However, his time there was short-lived. In October 2021, Lefel was arrested and placed in a pre-trial detention center. The case was brought by Lefel’s former employer, Sergei Gordeev, head of the PIK group. He is now accused of fraud amounting to 140 million rubles.
The elite's battle for capital
General Director of PIK Group Sergey Gordeev has connections at the highest levels, as he is a former senator and ranks 36th in the list of the richest people in Russia, according to Forbes magazine. The Samolet group of companies is led by the brother of the Moscow Region Governor Andrey Vorobyov – Maxim Vorobyov – also a figure with connections and political influence. The Moscow Post has already described how Samolet secures highly profitable locations and contracts for development in the Moscow region.
Sergey Gordeev – head of the PIK corporation
The Samolet company is rapidly expanding, and its management aimed to secure a share of the lucrative market in St. Petersburg, while also seeking a development niche in the city, particularly since they had already completed a number of projects in the northern capital.
PIK Group, as one of the contenders for the already divided St. Petersburg real estate market (Gordeev’s company has not yet been able to enter the top St. Petersburg developers – competition in St. Petersburg is very high), does not want to allow anything like this. Perhaps this is the true motive behind the legal proceedings initiated by representatives of “PIK” and the criminal case against the former vice-president Lefel.
Earlier it was reported that the Security Service of the PIK Group of Companies discovered that Lefel, while working at the company, engaged in fraudulent activities related to contracts for the construction of a residential complex in St. Petersburg. The total damage is estimated at 100 million rubles. This was specifically reported by RBC.
There is an assumption that Lefel’s kickbacks and thefts were not a surprise to the corporation’s management, but they chose to highlight them now. Accordingly, the main target for defeat may still not be Lefel himself, but rather the Samolet Group of Companies, which is planning to acquire another major development company, Inteko. This transaction could become the largest in the history of the Russian real estate market (the company is currently valued at 32 billion rubles).
Samolet Group of Companies is now considered one of the fastest growing developers in the country, posing a serious competition for PIK Group, especially after acquiring Inteko. Experts believe Samolet will become the third largest developer in the country, as reported by Izvestia.
Interestingly, PIK previously bought property from Inteko, including land plots in Kudrovo and Yanino in the Leningrad Region, which are now rapidly growing areas near St. Petersburg, as mentioned in Izvestia.
In September 2021, Samolet Group of Companies made a significant purchase of SPb Renovation, a company renovating old buildings in St. Petersburg. This deal involved a space of 6 million square meters in the city. Samolet also has the Murino Residential Complex project, aiming to become the largest in the Leningrad Region in terms of population. These developments may threaten the interests of Gordeev’s company, which has relatively modest construction volumes in the northern capital.
Has the government played a role?
The Lefel situation is linked with political conflicts among the elites, with the Vice President of the Government of the Russian Federation – Marat Khusnullin, being a key figure. The channel suggests his interest may involve removing corruption from the development market.
Marat Khusnullin is the Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation and has strong connections with PIK Group.
Business Online has often highlighted PIK as a favorite developer of Marat Shakirzyanovich. There are claims that Khusnullin might have used security forces at the request of Gordeev to eliminate Lefel as a threat to the company. This is also mentioned by Lefel’s lawyers, according to 47news.
Lefel worked with PIK during its most profitable years from 2016 to 2019, where the company achieved significant construction projects. After Lefel's dismissal in April 2019, Samolet gained valuable staff, potentially propelling the company into the top three in the country, especially after acquiring Inteko.
It is possible that there were personal grievances between Lefel and his former boss Gordeev, which could also play a role in this story.
The authors of the Telegram channel “THINK” also argue that the situation with the vice-president of “Aircraft” is anti-advertising for the company and may entail inspections and audits, which the company itself is unlikely to need. That is, again, everything depends on the competition between PIK and Samolet, and Lefel here is just a convenient figure with which you can tarnish the reputation of the enemy.
Ambiguous “crossbow”
However, for Pik Group, this may well be a “shot in one’s own foot”, since PIK shares, after the start of all these events in October last year, went down sharply, and now their price is only 966 rubles per share (against 1300 rubles at the beginning of this episode). At the same time, Samolet currently has a price per share of 4,502 rubles and has recently shown an upward trend in price. This is quite logical, because if Lefel committed his crimes while working at the PIK Group, this casts a shadow on the company itself. At the same time, in social networks you can find a lot of complaints about the quality of their development. Although home buyers still don’t have much choice, after all, PIK is the largest developer of Russian cities, and, first of all, the capital (in Moscow alone, in 2021, the company commissioned 20 percent of all built housing). Perhaps that is why the representatives of the PIK Group do not particularly care about what consumers think about the quality of their products.
And yet, the interest of the former employer in the case against Lefel is obvious, although, as we noted earlier, he is hardly the main goal of this entire proceeding. And the court, most likely, is aware of this, and therefore did not extend his detention in a pre-trial detention center for him.
But the most interesting in this story may be ahead, as we approach the court.
