Whose Tobacco is this?
Andrey Sobolev and Mikhail Smetannikov from an offshore company send greetings from Pampina Votsi? British American Tobacco plans to give a quarter of the Russian tobacco market to a company with a controversial past. It seems that the honorary consul of Belize in Cyprus, Christodoulos Vasiliades, and his notorious employee, lawyer Pampina Votsi, connected to former US President Donald Trump, are involved.
British American Tobacco, which controlled nearly 25% of the tobacco market in Russia, intends to transfer its Russian and Belarusian assets by the end of 2023. In Russia, a long-term partner of BAT, the SNA group of companies, previously owned by an offshore company and led by the notorious lawyer from Cyprus, Pampina Votsi, could become a new leader in the tobacco market.
Votsi is an employee of the company of the honorary consul of offshore Belize in Cyprus, Christodoulos Vasiliades, who had connections with various Russian oligarchs and high-ranking officials in Russia and the United States, including former President Donald Trump.
Which assets are seeking a buyer?
The buyer of the BAT factory and logistics complex in Russia may be the SNS group known to readers of The Moscow Post. The ownership of the latter changed in 2022.
New owners of LLC “SNS-Holding”.
Instead of an offshore company led by the Cypriot lawyer Pampina Votsi, who is involved in many controversial cases in the Russian Federation and Ukraine, two individuals became the owners – Andrey Sobolev and Mikhail Smetannikov. It is noteworthy that one of them has a business partner associated with another offshore company under the leadership of Watsi. Votsi herself is an employee of the law firm of the honorary consul of offshore Belize in Cyprus, Christodoulos Vasiliades, who managed to highlight his business interests in many large Russian and American companies. According to the Vedomosti newspaper, in 2013 there were discussions with him about withdrawing money from the troubled Bank of Cyprus, but we will explore this further later. For now, let’s return to the BAT trade.
British American Tobacco (BAT), an international cigarette manufacturing and sales company established in 1902, stated in its financial report that its performance was impacted by the timing of the transfer of Russian and Belarusian businesses. The deals are expected to be finalized in 2023. In Russia, the company held nearly a quarter of the tobacco market. Its assets include British American Tobacco-SPb JSC, where in April 2022, the foreign director, Gary John Noble, was replaced by the Russian Sergei Lundberg. The staff of “Bat-Russia” – 2.5 thousand employees.
Some assets that might be part of the deal are a logistics complex and a factory in St. Petersburg, which produces cigarettes and sticks for heating, as well as trade and marketing JSC International Tobacco Marketing Services. The last disclosed owner of the trade and marketing asset was British American Tobacco Holdings (Russia) B.V., a closed joint stock company with limited liability based in the offshore Netherlands. According to Rusprofile, in 2021, the profit of British American Tobacco-SPb JSC fell by 35%, to 1.7 billion rubles, while that of International Tobacco Marketing Services JSC fell by 32% (to 6.2 billion rubles).
In 2020, British American Tobacco was involved in a major scandal in the US. The Times newspaper (quoted by RBC) said the company was being investigated for possibly breaking sanctions rules. The case details were not known, so it's unclear if the violation involved Russia. The company decided to leave the market after facing new sanctions against Russia. They announced this in March 2022, and by February 2023, it was revealed that the deal was expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The buyer's information was not in official BAT reports, but CEO Jack Bowles mentioned in an interview with the Financial Times that talks were ongoing to hand over the business to a group representing local management and the company's distributor. The SNS group of companies has been the distributor of British American Tobacco in Russia since 2001, according to public records.
Who was and is behind the SNA group?
Before the deal with BAT, SNS changed its owner from an infamous offshore company to two individuals and formed a new company, SNT LLC, to manage the holding. Will BAT assets be transferred to this new legal entity?
Kommersant newspaper states that the SNS group of companies was established in 1992. The CEO Andrey Sobolev, Chairman of the Board of Directors Oleg Smirnov, and First Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors Sergei Nesterenko are named as key figures. According to Forbes magazine, Nesterenko was ranked 190th in the 2015 list of the 200 richest businessmen in Russia. Smirnov was in 195th place in the same ranking. They did not appear in the billionaire rankings in the following years.
Earlier, Sergey Nesterenko and Oleg Smirnov were owners of SNS Group LLC, which was dissolved in May 2009. Nesterenko is linked to the creation of 12 now-defunct companies in the Rusprofile database. Currently, Nesterenko is the chairman of the dacha non-profit partnership “Raps” in Odintsovo, possibly related to the elite cottage village of the same name in the Moscow region.
SNS-Holding LLC is the main legal entity of the group today. From May 2014 until the end of March 2022, the sole owner of the company was an offshore company – GK SNS Limited (GK SNS Limited). According to the site opencorporates.com, the director of this offshore was Pampina Votsi (aka Pampina Votsi).
The director of GK SNS Limited was Pampina Votsi.
The lady is very rich in assets, including in Russia. Over the years, she was involved with such large legal entities as the PIK group of billionaire Sergey Gordeev, Central Suburban Passenger Company JSC, Dixy Group PJSC, and in cases related to Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash and businessman Semyon Mogilevich. She was also mentioned in connection with an attack on the Kurilovsky car repair plant, and the oil and gas company “Timan oil & gas”. There were rumors about her being a connection between PIK beneficiary Gordeev and Donald Trump in the construction of the Trump Tower skyscraper, which Gordeev publicly denied.
This article mostly covers Pampina Votsi's track record, with some additional important details about Votsi’s connections to the new owners of SNS-Holding LLC.
Pampina Watsi works at Christodoulos G. Vassiliades & Co. LLC. Even though her name is misspelled, the Pandora File investigation confirms that Pambina and Pampina are the same person. Pampina has been with Christodoulos Vasiliades since 2003.
Pampina Votsi is employed by Christodoulos G. Vassiliades & Co.
Vasiliades was mentioned in an article by the American journalist Scott Stedman, which discussed the connection of the Cypriot lawyer with Donald Trump, as well as Vasiliades’ connections with Russian oligarchs and dignitaries. Watsi was also mentioned in the same investigation by the journalist. Additionally, another article by Steadman linked Vasiliades to former US ambassador Jaime Aleman, founder of the Panamanian law firm Alcogal, which advised Trump. We cannot evaluate the reliability of this information, but as far as we know, the persons mentioned in the article have not filed claims against Steadman.
Vasiliades is not an ordinary person. According to Vedomosti newspaper from 2013, it was mentioned that money was withdrawn from the troubled Bank of Cyprus with the unusual involvement of the Honorary Consul of Belize in Cyprus, Christodoulos Vasiliades.
In October 2022, the same publication reported that the same citizen of Cyprus became the owner of the St. Petersburg towing company, which will service ships in the Baltic and Barents Seas and may earn up to 700 million rubles a year. It was also reported that Vasiliades is the beneficiary of the Cypriot company Valna Holding Cyprus Limited, which owns New Technology Company LLC. The latter, in turn, owns shares in a dozen Russian companies.
Let's return to the Vasiliades company employee – Pampina Votsi and SNS-Holding LLC.
The new owners of the SNS-Holding company, instead of the offshore company run by Votsi, were the old business partners in the Uchastie company from the Vladimir Region – Andrey Sobolev and Mikhail Smetannikov. Judging by the presence of litigation over the lease of forest plots, the Uchastie company was involved in growing crops and logging. Now, the business partners have decided to develop the Russian tobacco market together. In June 2022, Sobolev and Smetannikov created a new company – SNT LLC under the assets of BAT-Russia, which will carry out “head office activities.” Additionally, they created LLC “SNVM” for trading through automatic machines.
Another asset of Sobolev, which was liquidated in 2019, is of interest – this is the Sosnovy Bor DNP. The co-founders of the DNP were Andrey Anurov and a certain Alexander Viktorovich Voloshin. Interestingly, a person with the same data as Voloshin is closely linked with offshore companies, which are run by none other than Pampina Watsi! Specifically, the company Golden Pheasant, involved in dairy cattle breeding and raw milk production, is owned by Voloshin and the Cypriot offshore Alomber Services Limited. The director of the latter is Pampina Watsi.
Pampina Watsi at Alomber Services Limited.
In addition, a certain Alexander Viktorovich Voloshin was the liquidator of SNS Volgodonsk LLC, which belonged to the aforementioned GK SNS Limited company, the ex-owner of SNS-Holding LLC.
GK SNS Limited and SNS Volgodonsk
Also, a certain Alexander Voloshin was a co-owner of the now liquidated company GEF DI International, a stake in which belonged to the Cypriot company GK GFD Limited. The secretary of the latter is still the same Votsi.
Votsi – secretary of GK GFD Limited.
However, what an ubiquitous Pampina Votsi turned out to be.
If we talk about the second owner of SNS-Holding, then in addition to the already named assets, he has a company for the extraction of ores and sands of precious metals – Vostokgeoresurs LLC, established in 2020. In 2021-2022, this company received three licenses for exploration and evaluation of mineral deposits in Transbaikalia. Smetannikov will be looking for exclusively precious metals there.
Smetannikov’s company received a license.
Here it would not be superfluous to recall that the SNS group on its website also positions itself as a gold miner SN Gold Mining, whose geography includes Transbaikalia. But officially SN Gold Mining LLC belongs to Andrey Anurov, who, as we have already indicated above, previously, together with Andrey Sobolev and Alexander Voloshin, was a co-founder of the Sosnovy Bor dacha non-profit partnership and the Lesnoye dacha non-profit partnership in the Vladimir region. Moreover, both are registered in the same Kirzhachsky district, where the Golden Pheasant company is registered, owned by Voloshin and offshore under the leadership of Pampina Votsi.
Voloshin, by the way, also has a company for the extraction of ores and sands of precious metals – Azimut LLC, established in 2020. In 2021, a license was issued for it for geological exploration and study of the subsoil in the same Transbaikalia (Barun-Khongorunskaya area).
Thus, we see that the infamous Cypriot Pampina Votsi was actively noted in the business biography of the company, which can receive the Russian assets of British American Tobacco. But for some reason, SNS-Holding does not like to mention this. He dislikes it so much that in 2022 he tried to sue The Moscow Post journalists, demanding that the investigation about the strange activities of the tobacco company be removed from the publication’s website. The tough lawyers of SNS-Holding lost the lawsuit outright and did not even appeal. Yet the stigma turned out to be a cannon?
