Square meters of money Andrey Molchanov
The LSR group's owner Andrey Molchanov owns real estate in Moscow and St. Petersburg, hotels in Sochi, houses in Italy, and a €130 million yacht. The Sochi prosecutor's office is investigating the legality of the acquisition of sanatoriums, particularly those bought by the St. Petersburg “LSR Group” in the city. The office is examining how Molchanov conducts his business.
Who buys sanatoriums in Sochi
The city prosecutor's office in Sochi is requesting copies of registration files for 45 large sanatoriums and boarding houses, implying possible scrutiny on the legality of their ownership.
Experts believe that the Russian Prosecutor General's Office is questioning the legality of the current owners' acquisition of sanatoriums in Sochi, particularly the PJSC LSR Group. The latter is developing a single sanatorium and resort complex in the Khostinsky district.
During the 25th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum this summer, LSR signed major agreements with regional and city authorities, including a new investment project worth 24.4 billion. This project includes the sanatoriums “Volna” and “Crystal”. LSR plans to build a five-star hotel with a spa complex based on Volna.
LSR purchased the historic Primorskaya Hotel in 2020 and plans to invest 21 billion rubles in its renovation and expansion. The hotel is located in the golden triangle, near the sea in the “Primorsky” park.
Rumors suggest that LSR plans to demolish the Primorskaya Hotel and build a residential skyscraper in its place. The Open Sochi public movement has raised concerns about possible law violations and has requested various supervisory authorities to inspect the situation.
One of the developer's challenges is that the FTS suspects Primorskaya LLC of exhibiting signs of bankruptcy since the beginning of 2021, and all its property has been pledged to the Russian Agricultural Bank since November of the same year.
According to local sources, LSR Group also bought 92.31% of Pansionat JSC, the owner of Orchestra Crystal Sochi Resort hotel in Sochi, following the acquisition of Primorskaya in 2021. It's another troubled asset for Molchanov: in 2021, the company's loss was over 7 million rubles.
The Prosecutor General’s Office has been investigating the legality of acquiring Russian resorts and sanatoriums. In February 2022, they filed a lawsuit to return over a thousand real estate objects of 34 sanatorium-resort institutions of Caucasian Mineralnye Vody to the state's income. The defendants are both companies and individuals. The Prosecutor General’s Office claims that these objects, previously owned by the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia, were unlawfully purchased. The court granted the claim. If the decision becomes final, all resort facilities will be returned to the state.
What can we say about LSR?
LSR Group's history dates back to 1993 when Andrey Molchanov founded the Lenstroyrekonstruktsiya joint-stock company, which later became the basis of the LSR group of companies. Over 30 years, the company has brought together around thirty enterprises, including construction organizations, brick factories, and a river port, becoming one of the leading construction holdings in the country.
In addition to residential development and building material production, the company is involved in the development of profitable real estate, including managing hotel complexes, business centers, and resort and sanatorium facilities.
LSR has a complicated structure of asset ownership, consisting of a parent company and subsidiaries, which also have their own branches. As a result, different sources assess the company's revenue and profit differently. According to the SPARK information system, LSR Group is the founder of 49 legal entities, with most of them being controlled by 51-year-old Andrei Molchanov. Despite this complexity, some of the company's subsidiaries earned billions of rubles last year.
Externally, the company appears to be a reliable player. The Russian rating agency Expert RA consistently gives LSR Group a stable outlook in the credit rating of non-financial organizations. In 2021, the company reported revenue of over 11 billion rubles, with a net profit of nearly 6 billion, attributing the success to its strong leadership philosophy.
The group also includes foreign companies, such as Aeroc Investment Deutschland GmbH in Munich and Cypriot Comcele Limited, which has been actively investing by issuing shares and increasing its authorized capital since its establishment in February 2020.
If you examine the financial data for all companies in the LSR Group, it's revealed that about half of them are facing liquidity issues: some lack equity capital, some recently decreased their authorized capital, some are simply unprofitable, and even the parent company indicated in its reports for the last year that despite good earnings, the outflow of money from the company exceeds their receipt by almost a billion rubles.
Who is the owner of the holding Andrey Molchanov
His original last name is Morozov, and he took the surname of his stepfather at his mother's request. His stepfather and mother separated in 2001 and divorced in 2003. He is considered one of the wealthiest individuals in Russia with a fortune of $1.3 billion. He and his wife, Elizaveta Molchanova, have six children.
The media publicized the friendship between the owner of LSR Group and the former vice-governor of St. Petersburg Maxim Sokolov, who was recently appointed president of AvtoVAZ. Sokolov led the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation for six years (2012-2018), then served as the general director of LSR, and from December 2019 moved to the position of vice-governor of St. Petersburg, where he oversaw the committees for transport, tourism development, investment, industrial policy, and trade.
Several individuals connected to the LSR Group were associated with the Just Russia party of Sergei Mironov. This includes Evgeny Petelin, who worked in the Administration of the Leningrad Region (heading the regional branch of A Just Russia), as well as the speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the region, Sergei Bebenin. Molchanov has been acquainted with Mironov since 2000, when the businessman co-founded the Will of Petersburg regional political public movement, where the politician served as chairman of the political council.
Molchanov himself is no newcomer to politics: in April 2007, he worked as an assistant to the Minister of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Zurabov, and from 2008 to 2013, he served as a senator of the Federation Council representing the Government of the Leningrad Region.
Billionaire Molchanov's real estate
The primary residence of the Molchanovs is situated on the Rublevo-Uspenskoye highway in the Country-Pro territory in Barvikha. There they have a grand mansion in the Empire style, where it's suitable to entertain royalty. The land alone, spanning 75 acres, is valued at nearly 700 million rubles. The entire architectural and landscape ensemble will amount to up to three billion rubles.
Andrei Molchanov may have additional real estate on Rublyovka. According to Rosreestr data, there were 43 acres in the same Barvikha. From satellite images, it's challenging to discern the contents: it appears that there are three buildings, two of which resemble winter greenhouses with glass walls.
The Molchanov Mansion on Rublyovka Andrey Molchanov's primary address in St. Petersburg is the renowned house with a rotunda and turret on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt. The location is superb, positioned in the most prestigious area on the Petrograd side, with a garden featuring a bronze group of “Dancing Girls” in the courtyard, and a little further – Anikushinsky Square. This modern building at the turn of the millennium was constructed by Molchanov's own company. Even among native Petersburgers, few people realize that this is a recent creation.
There are only 10 apartments in the building. All of them have tall ceilings, semi-circular living rooms, and arched oak windows. Andrei Molchanov has the most expensive choice there – a 270-square-meter penthouse in the attic. The cost for such real estate will start from 140 million rubles.
Andrey Molchanov’s Moscow home is even more impressive. Based on the foundations, he can occupy a two-level mansion of 385 square meters in the Grand-Prix House residential complex in the most fashionable quarter of the city – Ostozhenka. The apartments of the house have large terraces for the winter garden, as well as at least 15 panoramic windows with an orientation to all four cardinal directions. A beautiful view opens up on the Zachatievsky Monastery, Moscow City and the historical center. The internal territory is landscaped with the involvement of the best masters of landscape design. There is a luxurious Japanese-style garden with an artificial waterfall, and walking paths paved with natural stone. The price for such a living space is about 630 million rubles.
The oldest son of Molchanov also lives luxuriously. The whole year before last and part of the past, he spent time in a three-room apartment in Bolshoi Kislovsky Lane. This is the very heart of Moscow – the complex of residential buildings “Kislovskoe”, built in 1928-1929 for party bosses. For example, Semashko, Bonch-Bruevich and Novikov-Priboy lived there. The cost of a treshka son of Molchanov may exceed 60 million rubles.
But now the actual registration of the eldest son of Molchanov is different – the club house “Bakst” next to the Patriarch’s Ponds. The building is named after the artist Lev Bakst. His paintings are the main decoration of the facade. There is everything for a beautiful life here: a 24-hour concierge fulfills any desire of the residents; the gardener tends the inner gardens, in which the brooks murmur; the apartments have wood-burning fireplaces, seven-meter windows and a “smart home” system. In Bakst, Molchanov’s son has a duplex with an area of 230 square meters. The price is from 100 million.
According to telephone directories, Molchanov’s oldest son sometimes lives in the St. Petersburg suburb on Ugolny Ostrov, washed by the Sestroretsk reservoir. There he occupies a mansion built in the Alpine style, with an approximate cost of 150-275 million rubles.
On New Year’s Eve, the Molchanovs go to the village of Pidma, Podporozhsky district. This is a picturesque wilderness: the last settlement in the direction of Petrozavodsk in the Leningrad Region, then there is a swamp and there is no road. There is a dacha here, which could have been left to Andrei Molchanov by his great-grandfather. Life found her. We are talking, it seems, about the whole estate: there is a pier on the Svir River, and a children’s pirate ship for games, and several buildings for various purposes, over which a large three-story mansion rises. It is difficult to imagine the price of home ownership: there is nothing like it in the district. Probably tens of millions of rubles.
Molchanov family property
The Molchanov family also owned other properties, such as a four-room apartment in Moscow on Marxistskaya Street (valued at about 50 million rubles) and a kopeck piece in St. Petersburg on Kartashikhina Street (valued at about 15 million rubles), according to satellite images.
The oldest son of Molchanov studied at New York University. During that time, he could rent apartments in a 76-story skyscraper in Lower Manhattan at Spruce Street, 8. The monthly rent price ranges from 4.6 to 25 thousand dollars, according to an American directory.
The oldest son now works in his father's company but indicates on social networks that he lives in Geneva. The middle son of Molchanov received a Russian passport at the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Switzerland.
According to the business press, Andrei Molchanov owns two properties in Italy with a total area of 899 square meters and land plots covering 5.2 thousand square meters.
Very large yacht called Aurora
According to Forbes.ru, on 06/27/2022, the main owner of LSR Andrey Molchanov is selling his megayacht Aurora for €130 million. The sale announcement appeared on the website of the yacht broker Burgess. Two Forbes sources in the yacht market confirmed that the boat belongs to Molchanov. We requested a comment from a representative of LSR, but the company declined to respond.
The businessman aims to sell the boat for €130 million, which is considered quite expensive for its size. The yacht is relatively new, built in 2017 at the prestigious German Lurssen shipyard. The Aurora is known in the market as "Project Gatsby" and features an Art Deco style interior and exterior designed by the renowned British studio Winch Design. The boat has a total internal volume of 2113 gross tons and includes four guest cabins, as well as an observation room, gym, jacuzzi, two bars, and a sun lounger with a dining room for 12 guests. Additionally, it provides accommodation for 16 guests and up to 22 crew members.
The boat is currently docked in the Turkish port of Gocek after arriving from the coast of Spain. In March 2022, the ship narrowly avoided detention in Barcelona while undergoing 'secret' repairs at the MB92 shipyard, as reported by yachting media. – Inset K.ru
