A study of the assets of Khotin, which will inevitably follow in the event that his guilty persons are recognized, can shed light on a number of interesting transactions in which very large people are interested.

The majority shareholder of Ugra Bank Alexey Hotin was arrested on Friday, April 19. According to the website of the Investigative Committee, Khotin is one of the defendants in a criminal case on embezzlement of Ugra bank funds in the amount of 7.5 billion rubles. Part 4 of Article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, under which the case was filed, provides for up to 10 years in prison with a fine of up to 1 million rubles.

Meanwhile, in some media there was a strange assumption that in the Hotin case a new figure may appear - the beneficiary of Russia's largest pharmaceutical manufacturer Pharmstandard Viktor Kharitonin. The name of this entrepreneur has been associated with the deputy chairman of the government, Tatyana Golikova, since 2007, when Golikova became Minister of Health, and Pharmstandard - which is interesting, it was during this period - that she began to master the public procurement segment. Then, in 2009, the Ministry of Health, under the leadership of Golikova, recognized arbidol produced by Pharmstandard as one of the main means against the flu, despite the unproven effectiveness of this drug. And there was also the law “On Circulation of Medicines” pushed through by the Ministry of Public Health, thanks to which many imported drugs in Russia were replaced by generics again produced by Pharmstandard ... and so on.

Very good, but where does Alexey Khotin?

Entrepreneur Alexey Khotin, the owner of real estate in Moscow, as well as oil assets, occupying 154th place in the latest Forbes rating with a fortune of $ 700 million, appeared among the owners of Ugra Bank only in 2016. In July 2016, Ugra ranked 30th in terms of assets among Russian banks. But a year later, in July 2017, the bank’s license was revoked - and this, with a total deposit volume of more than 180 billion rubles!

According to the Central Bank, “Ugra” has accumulated a number of issues - and suspicions about the inaccuracy of the reports provided by the bank, and complaints about the business model (the bank credited legal entities at the expense of individuals' funds). In addition, there were signs of withdrawal of assets from the bank. Alexey Khotin remained in Russia and continued to fight for the bank even after the revocation of the license - none of the owners of financial institutions recessed by the Central Bank fought so desperately as he did.

One of the assets, the ultimate owners of which were Alexey Khotin and his father Yury, was the Gorbushkin Dvor shopping center. In June 2017, Sergey Podlisetsky, head of the oil company Rus Oil (on the basis of which Khotin’s oil assets are consolidated), sells the Gorbushkin Dvor shopping center for $ 500 million ... to Viktor Kharitonin. By a strange coincidence, this happened just before Ugra lost its license.

The Moscow Post, citing its sources, reports that the deal between Khotin and Kharitonin has signs of fictitious. A small additional detail - Kharitonin has always been attributed to friendship not only with Golikova, but also with her husband - the former head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Viktor Khristenko. By the way, his son Vladimir, now the president and co-owner of the Nanolek biopharmaceutical company, which also succeeds on the Russian pharmaceutical market, is rumored to have previously held a post in Khariton's Pharmstandard.

Attention, the question is: will Tatyana Golikova continue to support the owner Viktor Kharitonin now, if the prospect of a criminal case looms on the horizon? If the Central Bank wants to make a demonstrative whipping of Khotin who resisted too actively, he will try to reach out to all of his assets, real or imaginary. It would be interesting to see the battle between Golikova and Nabiullina - if, of course, the honorable ladies want to join it.