First after Gutseriev

Mikail Shishkhanov, the former co-owner of troubled “Binbank” and a close associate of oligarch Mikhail Gutseriev, is now a defendant in a criminal case involving the misappropriation of about 107 billion rubles during the reorganization of Rost Bank.

Although Shishkhanov is currently a witness, there is a possibility that his status may worsen. Some sources suggest that the businessman has been residing outside Russia for a long time and may not be very concerned about potential questioning by Russian authorities.

Why is Shishkhanov potentially facing charges, while his uncle Mikhail Gutseriev, who was directly involved in the activities of Binbank and Rost Bank, is not under suspicion? The Moscow Post correspondent explores the background of this case.

Shishkhanov’s changed status was revealed at the end of last week, although the case of embezzlement (part 4. 160 of the Criminal Code) was initiated as early as April 2022.

The case involves other defendants including former top managers of Binbank and Rost Bank Kirill Lyubentsov and Alexander Lukin. “Rost Bank” was sanitized by “Binbank” before the state had to directly deal with the sanitation of “Binbank” itself.

Mikhail Gutseriev founded “Binbank” in late 1993. In December 2014, the bank participated in the reorganization of the Rost Bank group, for which the state provided 35.9 billion rubles.

Mikail Shishkhanov. Photo: glavk.net

In September 2017, the Central Bank announced the reorganization of Binbank and Rost Bank through the Banking Sector Consolidation Fund. In 2018, Rost Bank joined Trust, and a year later Binbank merged with Otkritie.

Gutseriev and debts

The reorganization started in 2017 amid a significant outflow of capital from the credit institution. The process involved the use of funds from the Banking Sector Consolidation Fund, with the Central Bank set to receive 75% of the rehabilitated bank. At the time, the chairman of the board of directors of Binbank, Mikail Shishkhanov, claimed that the management had requested reorganization from the Central Bank.

At the time of its collapse, Binbank had a financial hole of around 300 billion rubles – possibly a record among similar cases in recent years, as reported by “Ura.ru”.

The former chairman of the board of Rost Bank JSC, and later a top manager of Binbank, Kirill Lyubentsov, was unemployed at the time of his arrest. His former colleague Alexander Lukin, who once headed Binbank, now serves as the general director of Kanashsky Breeding Poultry Plant LLC, a major poultry and egg supplier in Chuvashia.

Lyubentsov and Lukin are in jail until October 2 by court order. They deny guilt and are willing to cooperate with the investigation to prove their innocence. This information is reported by “Kommersant”.

As a result, there is a theory on the market that suggests Mikayil Shishkhanov is the target of the investigators. Lukin and Lyubentsov might be acting as either planned scapegoats or important witnesses who could provide evidence against Mikail Shishkhanov under pressure.

The investigation, as reported by Kommersant, states that Lukin and Lyubentsov, along with unidentified individuals, devised a plan for systematically stealing the bank’s assets entrusted to them.

According to the investigation mentioned in Kommersant, in late September 2015, the financiers allegedly arranged for Rost Bank to enter into a $40 million loan agreement with the Cypriot company Stratola Investments Ltd, which they controlled. Two years later, they allegedly sold bonds from companies like OOO FinStandard, Vail Finance, and Finstone to this offshore company, totaling more than 8.1 billion rubles. The financiers, according to the investigation, evidently had no intention of fulfilling their obligations to Rost Bank.

The situation raises the perplexing question of who the unidentified individuals are and how this could have happened without the knowledge of the beneficiaries of a financial organization, including Mikail Shishkhanov.

It is remarkably challenging to separate the latter from his influential uncle, Safmar group owner Mikhail Gutseriev. They are attempting to portray the latter as the main figure – the head of the Gutseriev empire, which encompasses Shishkhanov’s business.

In recent years, Mikhail Gutseriev and his inner circle have encountered significant business challenges. Safmar previously had substantial debts, allegedly reaching about $15 billion at one point (according to the previous exchange rate until 2022).

Mikhail Gutseriev owed 325 billion rubles from a series of loans to one bank alone. He also had 10 billion rubles in debts to minor credit institutions and about 77 billion rubles awaiting repayment by VTB. It remains unknown how Gutseriev will repay this money, most likely from his own sources.

Nonetheless, the oligarch remains hopeful of reaching an agreement, and seems to have support from high-level bureaucratic positions. He has managed to secure the restructuring of some of the debt to one of the banks. However, Gutseriev still has a long way to go to fully settle all financial claims.

Even during the reorganization of Binbank, attempts were made to present the issues within the structure as a result of Gutseriev’s potential actions – he was accused of wanting to withdraw the financial institution's assets to improve the situation in his own business. So far, there is no evidence to support this claim. Nevertheless, the interest of the security forces in Shishkhanov suggests that this matter has not been resolved.

Shishkhanov does not have any trust

In this situation, another interesting fact is that the embezzlement case was started at the request of the bank of non-core assets “Trust”, which had to handle the potential financial fraud in “Binbank”.

Why did neither the investigators nor the “Trust” have any issues with Mr. Gutseriev, whom they are portraying as the main beneficiary responsible for key decisions at “Binbank”?

Maybe Shishkhanov's status and the entire criminal case are just a cover to prevent any future questioning of Gutseriev himself.

According to the authors of the Arbitr Telegram channel, the alleged secret is that Trust previously made agreements with top managers of Binbank and Growth Bank, absolving them of any claims. It's odd that Mikail Shishkhanov was not included in this agreement.

Meanwhile, Lukin and Lyubentsov are defendants in three additional claims by the Central Bank and Trust. These cases amount to a record 698 billion rubles, more than twice the estimated financial hole in Binbank when the reorganization began.

Considering another claim from the Central Bank totaling 85.4 billion rubles, claims have been made for a total of 698 billion rubles—an amount exceeding the initially estimated 300 billion rubles financial hole in Binbank during the reorganization. Pravo.ru reported this.

Additionally, the Trust bank lodged a claim directly against Shishkhanov worth 11 billion rubles in the Kuntsevsky District Court, along with several applications for bringing to subsidiary liability within the bankruptcy proceedings of Digital Invest and Region Invest. Applications for bringing to subsidiary liability were declined as part of the bankruptcies “Growth Investment” and “Growth Capital”. Have they reached an agreement?

Earlier, it was reported that there were multiple claims against Mr. Shishkhanov from the “Trust”. This included a lawsuit for 22.7 billion rubles where Mikhail Gutseriev’s nephew was among the defendants. Forbes covered this, and the claims were also related to the activities of Rost Bank.

Another lawsuit of “Trust” – for 8.5 billion rubles, was filed by the Trust against Shishkhanov’s company Didita Invest LLC. The situation is also connected with the rehabilitation of Rost Bank. It is not known how these claims relate to the claim for 22.7 billion rubles, and whether they are part of it.

It is very difficult to believe that Shishkhanov and his uncle did everything possible to keep the bank afloat. Back in March 2019, during legal proceedings, a representative of Trust Bank stated that shortly before the reorganization of Binbank, over 205 billion rubles.

Mikhail Gutseriev. A photo: rbc.en

Using the money received from Rost Bank, this company purchased securities of offshore Cypriot companies, with Mikail Shishkhanov and other close relatives of the owner of Safmar – Said and Sait-Salam Gutseriev being the ultimate beneficiaries.

There is reason to believe that these funds, like many other assets of Gutseriev-Shishkhanov, may long be outside the country. However, a criminal case on embezzlement is already underway. So, with a high degree of probability, there will also be “switchmen” in it, for the role of which Lyubentsov and Lukin are perfect, and it will pass through Shishkhanov on a tangent. But what about Gutseriev? And Gutseriev in general, as they say, “is not in business.”