Bosov’s widow caught between Sechin and Chemezov

The struggle for the coal legacy of the owner of Sibanthracite will begin in the very near future. Structures related to either Rostec or Rosneft can win it.
29.05.2020
Kompania
Origin source
The main question in the story of the alleged suicide of coal billionaire Dmitry Bosov is who will get his Sibanthracite with reserves of 674 million tons of coal. The media around the company gave the impression of the problem of its assets, which were burdened with loans and lawsuits. But experts call them quality.

“Sibanthracite is one of the best companies with a unique deep-occurring high-quality anthracite, unique to Russia,” says Maxim Khudalov, director of the ACRA corporate rating group. “Even now, prices for anthracites in the world have fallen less than for other coals.” The volume of liabilities to banks at Sibanthracit at the end of 2018 amounted to 40 billion rubles. This is a lot, but due to the high profitability, the debt / EBITDA ratio was less than 2 - a very good indicator. At the end of 2019, it could be about 5, and I do not think that for large state-owned banks this is an occasion to bankrupt the company. I see no economic reasons for its restructuring. ”

The question of Dmitry Bosov’s inheritance seems rhetorical: he still has children from three marriages and his wife, Katerina Bosova, commercial director of Sibanthracite. It was she who on the night of May 6 found her husband’s body and a Glock pistol in the estate on Rublevka, half of which the billionaire wrote to her.

She came to the company from Ilya Shcherbovich’s “Fashion Continent”, who was called the “Igor Sechin’s man”. In the affairs of her husband, Katerina has been actively involved since 2017, and according to some reports, since 2016. After the death of Bosov, she became the first person in the company.

In 2018, in the United States, Dmitry and Katerina had a daughter, Bella-Alex. Now Mrs. Bosov and Tatyana Navka are in charge of the First Day anti-coronavirus foundation created by her husband.

Depending on the will of Dmitry Bosov, two previous wives may also claim the share of his assets. From the 53-year-old Eleanor Bosova, the billionaire has two adult sons, Artem and Anton. With the second wife, Anastasia Starovoitova, the late coal tycoon met in Ukraine, and she, too, was to some extent related to his affairs. As Bosov’s companion recalled, the “shadow master” of the Verkhovna Rada Alexander Volkov, during the “Orange Revolution” of 2004, Dmitry and Anastasia stood on the Maidan with Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko.

Later, this helped Bosov become a partner of Igor Kolomoisky and withdraw half of the 25% stake in Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant from under the nose of Viktor Vekselberg and Alexander Abramov.

Katerina Bosov has not yet announced her intention to sell Sibanthracite. On February 20, in an interview with S&P Global Platts, she announced a post-crisis increase in coal supplies to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. In addition, despite the pandemic, it expects an increase in demand for Siberian anthracite in India, which smelts more and more steel. But it is possible that the case will end with the sale of assets. And not the fact that the heirs will be able to bargain for them for a long time.

Marathon sprinter

Coal was not the dream of Dmitry Bosov's youth; his business model was built on the rapid capitalization and sale of heterogeneous assets during the growth period. And the first serious victory for him was the shares of the Krasnoyarsk aluminum smelter, from which almost all metallurgical magnates left the battle for which, like from the Gogol's overcoat.

Bosov fought for KrAZ in the interests of the Trans World Commodities of the Black brothers and received a 5% stake in the plant for this. In 2000, he sold them to Oleg Deripaska. Then he bought electrode and cryolite plants from Blacks who left Russia - and sold them to the same Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg. In 2004, together with Alltech partner Maxim Barsky, he bought 20% of West Siberian Resources for debt - and, increasing its capitalization by 15 times, he sold Musa Bazhaev to the Alliance.

Friends explained this model of Bosov’s investments by his impulsiveness. But in the growing market and during the period of V-shaped crises, he did not know defeat, becoming the embodiment of the principle of “rich investor - fast investor”.

It is believed that the co-owner of UMMC and Transmashholding Andrei Bokarev helped Bosov enter the “long” coal. And Mikhail Abyzov, close to Anatoly Chubais and Dmitry Medvedev, the general director of Kuzbassrazrezuglya knew Bosov from Krasnoyarsk.


In 2007, he invested in the Kolyvan anthracite deposit near Novosibirsk. In 2012, he bought the Kiyzassky open pit mine in Kuzbass (50% of it is attributed to Abyzov, but Bosov denied this). In the midst of the 2014 crisis, development of the Vostochny open pit begins. The risk paid off: as Maxim Barsky said, because of US sanctions against North Korea, Sibanthracite occupied its niche in the world market.

By 2017, Dmitry Bosov buys Sibanthracite Kuzbass, invests $ 100 million in two anthracite deposits in Taimyr, produces coal in Indonesia and acquires 50% of the largest Ogodzhinsky deposit and port of Vera in the Far East. In 2018, Sibanthracite produced 24.1 million tons of coal - a quarter of its Russian production.

“We have created a large coal company, 80% of the coal is metallurgical, which can withstand any crisis,” then said Alexander Isaev, Bosov’s partner, to Kommersant. “Europe, in fact, died like a market, and everyone rushed to the East.”

“Our know-how is that we quickly begin to mine, cash flow begins, we can lend,” explained Barsky, general director of the company. He called the creditors a consortium of foreign banks and Sberbank.

In 2018, Dmitry Bosov with a fortune of $ 950 million for the first time falls into the Forbes list. He’s Putin’s neighbor in Rublevka, finances the Night Hockey League, drives the puck with Mikhail Mishustin and Sergei Shoigu (his daughter Ksenia Shoigu was listed as a partner in Boskov's Arctic Logistics company). He sponsors social projects of ex-Putin guard, Tula governor Alexei Dyumin, and helps a friend Demyan Kudryavtsev, who transferred Vedomosti to Rosneft's control.

The owner of Sibanthracite was spoken of as an “omnipotent coal tycoon,” and he was getting away with loud environmental disruptions. By the age of 50, it seems that an impulsive investor has found a niche in the system and has become his own. But that was not entirely true.

King Squire Proxy Hunt

The last two years have passed in Russia under the sign of a decrease in external demand for raw materials and an increase in the competition of power groups for income sources. The main buyers of Russian resources are Asian countries, and the main creditors are state-owned banks. In Siberia and the Far East, this led to the expansion of the "Petersburg", the symbol of which became Gleb Frank. And not only them.


For Dmitry Bosov, a new reality began in 2018 with a refusal to sell the assets of Sibanthracite to the Coalstar company, Eduard Khudainatov, who claimed the Kolyvansky opencast mine. According to RBC, he gave $ 1.5 billion for them, and Bosov asked for 3 billion. For the ex-director of Rosneft, the shadow of omnipotent Igor Sechin looms.

Officially, no one recognized the fact of the negotiations, but Bosov orders the “Sibanthracite is not for sale” advertising campaign in Vedomosti. Rosneft is leaving its Pechora LNG gas project. And VostokUgol receives a two-billion fine from Rosprirodnadzor for illegal coal mining in Taimyr.

Among the applicants for the assets of Bosov, Sergey Kurchenko was also named. The name of the “ex-wallet of Yanukovych” and the frontman of the Kremlin’s coal schemes in the Donbass indicated not so much his personal interest as the interest of someone very big. And perhaps it was a subtle hint at the participation of the head of Alltech in the first Maidan.

According to friends, Bosov asked for protection from Andrei Bokarev and Iskander Makhmudov (he will later sell 20% of the Sibanthracite Kuzbass subsidiary to their partner Sergei Glinka). It did not help.

In the fall of 2018, following the frightened Mikhail Abyzov, Dmitry Bosov left Russia. In California, he and his wife bought a villa for $ 30 million and invested $ 160 million in marijuana plantations. The legal drug business could become a family anchor in the United States and compensate in Indonesia, where Bosov and Isaev lost up to $ 250 million. However, after a year and a half, this business will fall apart.

2019 brings new troubles. The fine for Taimyr can be reduced to 600 million rubles, but a criminal case from the FSB is added to it. Amid falling coal exports, Russian Railways and three private freight companies are suing for wagon downtime by 587 million rubles. Some of them Sibanthracite lost.

Then, a long media war begins against the company, similar to an attempt to bring down the price of assets before an offer. It is unclear who her customer is, but usually even the most loyal media outlets in the regions where the company operates are connected to it.

And then Bosov makes a knight's move - he writes a letter to the president asking him to allow him to build Severomuisky Tunnel-2 at his own expense, which will increase BAM's throughput from 16 to 100 million tons of cargo per year. Putin is so fond of the idea that Russian Railways endorsed that in the summer of 2019, Bosov becomes the SPIEF headliner. Talking about the project on the air "Russia 24", Bosov was very nervous. But the enemies were defeated.

Only two problems remained - the apparent shortage of 60 billion rubles declared for the tunnel. and partners' plans for the Ogodzhinskoye field and port of Vera. The fact is that A-Property Albert Avdolyan publicly announced its intention to include them in its future Yakut energy cluster. And Bosov was not asked about this.

Faith Brothers

According to Kontur.Fokus, in the Ogodzhynsky Coal Company, which controls the largest coal deposit with reserves of 1.5 billion tons, 50% belong to the Cypriot Sibanthracite Pielsi, 37.5% to Ekaterina Lapshina, another 12.5% at the Federal Property Management Agency. A similar ownership structure in Port Vera Management LLC, only Lapshina shares 37.5% there with Eduard Novikov from Rosengineering. In both companies, Lapshin represents Albert Avdolyan.

Managed by Ogodzha and Vera, Vostokugol. On April 6, 2020, its director Alexander Isaev, Dmitry Bosov, publicly dismissed from all posts for “flagrant abuse and theft,” which became “a good opportunity for competitors.” And on April 30 it will become known that Isaev went to Avdolyan and headed the largest Elginskoye coal deposit in Yakutia, which Bosov was eyeing.

A-Property bought 51% of Elga from Igor Zyuzin. The owner of Mechel did not want to sell the share, but state banks refused to refinance loans to him. At the same time, non-public Albert Avdolyan, whose fortune is estimated at $ 800 million, not only found 95 billion rubles at the height of the crisis. to buy back Zyuzin's share, but also offered 31 billion rubles. Gazprombank for the remaining 49%.


In total, Avdolyan is ready to spend 140 billion rubles on the Elginskoye field. - This is not counting investments in its development.

A little earlier, in 2019, Avdolyan’s structures bought Ziyavudin Magomedov, who was arrested after the conflict with Transneft, for the debts of the Yakutsk Fuel and Energy Company (hereinafter - YATEK). Costs are estimated at 14 billion rubles. Its further investments in the LNG project based on YATEC with reserves of 367 billion cubic meters. m gas Avdolyan estimates at $ 10 billion.

He plans to include all this with his partner Sergey Adonyev in his Yakut energy cluster - together with the Ogodzhinsky deposit and the port of Vera. In "Sibanthracite" call it "Wishlist." But where does the money come from?

The sources of financing were not disclosed by A-Property, but Avdolyan, a long-standing partner of Rostec in Yota and Megafon, is close to Sergei Chemezov. They are seen together in an informal setting. Chemezov is the head of the board of trustees of the New House Avdolyan family charity foundation. According to the "Project", Avdolyan with Chemezov and Adonyev participated in negotiations on financing of the "Novaya Gazeta".

After the death of Dmitry Bosov, the publication reported that in April, thanks to Dyumin and Shoigu, the billionaire reconciled with Igor Sechin. But signs of a media campaign against Sibanthracite are still being observed. Moreover, a series of stories about Bosov’s assets took place in the media of the “National Media Group” of the Kovalchuk brothers.

In March, Channel Five talked about environmental damage from Sibanthracite in the Kuzbass, hinting at a possible revocation of the company’s license. In the international group "Eco-protection!" note that similar violations by other companies were not of interest to journalists. And in mid-April, after Isaev’s dismissal, REN TV and the IZ.RU channel shot a story about environmental damage caused by VostokUgol Primorye and the port of Vera. Bosov's partners in this project were not mentioned in the plot.

Leave or obey

There are no official bidders for Dmitry Bosov’s assets yet. The fate of the Arctic Mountain Company, whose sale was discussed with Rosatom in February, is unclear: Vyacheslav Ruksha, deputy head of the Northern Sea Route Directorate, told Ko that he knows nothing about this.

Director of Sibanthracite Maxim Barsky refused to discuss the future of assets. Bosov’s partner Andrei Bokarev did not answer the calls, the UMMC reported that they did not comment on their intentions. At Colestar, Eduard Khudainatov did not answer Ko's questions. Contact with Albert Avdolyan and his representatives of "Co" failed.

“Avdolyan may not have enough money for Sibanthracite, given the need to remove and remove the“ cap ”of low-quality coal at the Elginsky deposit,” says Maxim Khudalov from ACRA. - And Khudainatov was interested in Sibanthracite in 2018, when his EBITDA margin exceeded 50%. Today, coal prices have fallen multiple, the capacity of the railway does not exceed 100 million tons per year, and the entire limit is reserved by other producers. Therefore, Bosov got involved in the construction of the Severomuisky tunnel - 2, overestimating its capabilities, ”he recalls.

But experts consider the political chances to keep the political chances to keep Sibanthracite’s assets from moving to structures associated with Igor Sechin and Sergey Chemezov.

“The old wave entrepreneurs had the options to survive until 2014, when the power corporation began to completely dominate in Russia,” says Pavel Salin, director of the Center for Political Science Research at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. - The most far-sighted by that time either sold everything and left for London, or became junior partners of the oligarchs of Putin's call. For example, Alexey Mordashov managed to form a fairly close alliance with the Kovalchuk and sponsored their media projects. But the Night Hockey League, which was financed by Bosov (and the Magomedov brothers. - Ed.), Was not a strategic alliance. There remains the option to try to get the maximum for your assets. But we must understand that there will be two buyers at best, and most likely one. ”

President of the Center for Strategic Communications Dmitry Abzalov connects the events surrounding Sibanthracite with the weakening of Dmitry Medvedev’s team.

“Bosov and Abyzov got the Kiyzassky open pit with him, the Magomedov brothers got the United Grain Company,” he says. - Now Abyzov and Magomedov are behind bars, while Bosov, in search of political cover, rushed into Severomuisky Tunnel 2, knowing that everything had been borrowed from him. But he wasn’t supported, and it became much more difficult to sail out against the backdrop of a falling market. ”

In order to hold assets, Bosov tried to “bring them to life” through investments in Indonesian coal and California marijuana, the expert said. But she was not so profitable. But Bosov, in a hurry, did not have time to prepare to enter the Indonesian market in a hurry.