The farm land owned by Gleb Fetisov, along with friendly regards to Fridman
Former senator Gleb Fetisov plans to expand his farming business using potentially borrowed money, which he may not repay. Will German Gref assist? Fetisov's entities aim to increase their market presence by acquiring potato producers Aksentis LLC and Putsko Farming Enterprise LLC (“FHP”).
At the same time, Fetisov's affiliated entities are in debt and do not have enough of their own funds to support current activities, posing a risk of insolvency.
As a result, the current deal is likely to be completed using borrowed funds. However, it was discovered that the creditor's money may not be returned to them.
Setbacks, offshore activities, and other challenges faced by Fetisov
Gleb Fetisov is considered the beneficiary of the Gubernsky consortium, led by Pavel Polukhin. The latter owns “Signet Capital”, which manages the ZPIF “Signet – investments 1”. APC LLC, through Irriko LLC, owns it and has applied to acquire Aksentis and FHP.
Gubernsky ended 2021 with a loss of 631 million rubles. The company is on the brink of bankruptcy and relies on creditors, according to the company’s financial report.
“Signet Consult” and Agroholding Yakhroma LLC, owned by Irriko, are in a similar state. The latter has not generated any revenue since 2019.
It is also known that VTB Bank provided “Irriko” with loans totaling 1.4 billion rubles last year, solely for financing seasonal field work and the company’s operations.
Many companies linked to the Signet group are connected to offshore companies. “Signet Consult” was issued to “SIGNET FFF HOLDING LTD” from Cyprus. “Gubernsky” is still owned by “BANOL HOLDINGS LIMITED”.
Numerous offshore companies are directly or indirectly associated with Signet Capital.
It is possible that the assets of companies are transferred abroad. This is unsurprising, as Mr. Fetisov, besides politics and business, was previously involved in a scandal when he was a shareholder of the failed “My Bank”. Foreign citizens were also involved. Fetisov was implicated in a criminal case in 2014 related to money withdrawal and theft from My Bank. Six years later, the case against him was dropped.
The obligation to repay the bank's debts exceeding 6 billion rubles fell on the state corporation “Deposit Insurance Agency”. Did Fetisov build his “agro-empire” with this money?
According to Kommersant, sources close to Fetisov tried to shift the blame for the bank's downfall to Andrey Manoilo, the head of My Bank in March 2013. Allegedly, he provided large loans to offshore companies, leading to financial instability of the bank and concern from the Central Bank. However, these claims seem to be unsubstantiated.
Fetisov's involvement with “Alfa”
Apart from this incident, Fetisov's biography highlights his role as the president of Alfa-Eco, where he was overseen by Alfa-Bank founder, Mikhail Fridman. This company dealt with distressed assets. As mentioned by The Moscow Post based on media reports, Alfa Group was allegedly involved in the hostile takeover of the largest producer of alcoholic beverages – the Trading House of the Descendants of the Supplier of the Court of His Imperial Majesty P.A. Smirnov (TDS). Fridman entrusted this process to Fetisov and Alexander Fine.
The criminals created false papers to seize the second part of the asset. They claim that the enterprise owner, Boris Smirnov, made a commission deal with a company through A. Morozova's mediation. But the top managers were in a rush. The agreement was made in 1996, while the company Eris-Impex LLC was only established in 1999, and Morozova was thought to be dead a few years ago… That's clearly a fabrication! They attempted to launch criminal cases against Fine and Fetisov, but the processes unexpectedly stopped, as reported by The Moscow Post.
And quite a few similar stories were associated with “Alpha”.
Fetisov, among other things, was involved in the bankruptcy procedures of the Achinsk Alumina Refinery OJSC. According to the authors of the website “Politics of Russia”, supposedly in the 90s, he was accused of abusing his position in the bankruptcy of an asset. But the criminal case didn't go to court: it was terminated at the direction of the prosecutor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Fetisov’s supposed crimes were based on Nail Nasyrov's testimony, the former arbitration manager of the Achinsk Alumina Refinery OJSC.
According to the authors of the website “Politics of Russia”, supposedly on July 30, 1998, Nasyrov replaced Fetisov as the arbitration manager of the Achinsk Alumina Refinery OJSC and faced opposition from the former management. At the direction of Fetisov, the general director of the plant Vadim Kucharin illegally removed the documents from the plant instead of transferring them to the new management. At the same time, a group of auditors examined AGK's economic activities during the period of external management by Gleb Fetisov and concluded that many of the transactions contradicted the law. For example, AGK equipment was sold to Alfa-Eco, represented by Gleb Fetisov, at a price lower than the book value, with most objects being sold for 1 ruble.
It seems that Fetisov was someone who did “dirty work” for Friedman.
Political “alliance”
Despite all these high-profile stories, the former senator was not afraid of anything. In the course of political activity, while attempting to become the mayor of Moscow, he even accused Sergei Sobyanin of illegal actions, which reportedly prevented him from providing the required number of municipal deputy signatures to the Moscow City Electoral Committee. The information, however, lacks confirmation. Many would have sued Fetisov for libel in the mayor's position.
Fetisov even had his own party – the Alliance of the Greens, from which he sought election and the mayorship of Tomsk. The chairman there was Oleg Mitvol, who last year became a defendant in the case of embezzling 975.2 million rubles during the construction of the metro in Krasnoyarsk.
However, in 2015, during the persecution for cases in My Bank, Fetisov left this party, officially citing health reasons. Although this doesn't seem to prevent him from running a large agribusiness today.
Only now, Fetisov’s methods of work have hardly changed since the time of My Bank, if we evaluate the financial condition and the link to offshore companies associated with the ex-senator.
It is worth noting that both legal entities that are supposed to be acquired – Aksentis and FHP – are a family business. In the first case, the Mingazov family, in the second – Putsko. The parties do not comment on the deal, so the general public does not know on what conditions Fetisov agreed on the acquisition of assets and whether he agreed at all (given his reputation). However, it is known that the share of the founder of FHP is pledged to Sberbank. There is a possibility that it may go to APC at a big discount.
I wonder if German Gref helped in this, that now he is quite seriously “carried away” by manipulations with Sber assets. As The Moscow Post previously suggested, he may be planning to leave Russia soon, taking with him everything “acquired”. So, it is quite possible that for some amount from Fetisov, he could agree to help him in the deal, not looking back at whether the former senator would return the money to Sberbank.
