At the start of the implementation of the three-year privatization plan, approved by the government on February 15, the head of the Federal Property Agency Dmitry Pristanskov changes the team, inherited from his predecessor Olga Dergunova. According to Kommersant, he dismissed one of the deputy heads of key departments, Ivan Aksenov, who was responsible for the privatization of Federal State Unitary Enterprise management and public joint stock companies. At the same time, according Kommersant's sources, in his post, Mr. Aksyonov blocked the sale of state shares of one of ALROSA's subsidiaries, Diamond World, and a number of other assets worth 9 billion rubles.

The deputy head of the Federal Property Agency, Ivan Aksyonov wrote a letter of resignation, confirmed a source in the department. Now the officer is on vacation, the source told Kommersant. Ivan Aksyonov was the right hand of the previous head of department Olga Dergunova, overseeing the management of investment relations, restructuring and management of state organizations privatized assets - and after her retirement in the spring of 2016 an official was called to be one of the possible candidates for the post of head of department. Replacing Mr. Aksyonov looks a landmark decision: on February 15, the government approved the privatization plan for 2017-2019; in addition, this year should be completed corporatization of federal state unitary enterprises. Implementation of the privatization plan was called by Dmitry Pristanskov at the time of his appointment "the most important task of the Federal Property Agency," as well as the need to enforce the government's directive to increase the rate of payments of dividends from state-owned companies and the reorganization of federal state unitary enterprises. For these issues Mr. Aksenov was responsible, but his work repeatedly caused serious complaints from the Ministry of Economy.

As noted by the interlocutors of Kommerant which are familiar with the situation, Mr. Aksenov, with the support of Olga Dergunova and after she left, actually blocked the privatization of major assets (including state-owned shares of the subsidiary of ALROSA - "Diamond World") and canceled three auctions for the sale of UOMZ (Vologda oil producer). This year, Mr. Aksyonov canceled the sale of the Moscow publishing house "Higher School" assets, Astrakhan geophysical expedition and others. According to the sources of Kommersant, in general the official managed to slow down the privatization of state property worth about 9 billion rubles. As a result, for 2015 the amount of income from self-privatization (2 bln.) of Rosimushchestvo appeared to be three times lower than the sales of its independent sellers.

Also, according to the previous privatization plan, the corporatization of enterprises subordinate to Federal Property Management Agency, or having no departmental affiliation, where the rights of the owner are executed by the Agency, shall be completed in a year. Resistance of lobbyists is caused by the fact that government customers will lose the opportunity to receive subsidies from the budget for the purchase. However, the delay in the privatization of federal state unitary enterprises already corporatized often leads to bankruptcy of enterprises and the conclusion of the most liquid assets.

Who will replace Mr. Aksyonov, is still unknown. Yesterday in the Federal Property Management Agency started to work the Deputy Minister Mikhail Penziev, a classmate of Mr. Pristanskov at St. Petersburg State University law school, who worked in the committee for industrial policy and innovation of St. Petersburg - he will be responsible for document circulation and business activities. Last week, Andrey Kisin joined the team of Dmitry Pristanskov. The official is the ex head of Arkady Rotenberg's Krasny Kvadrat company; he will be responsible for the utilization review and sales of seized property. Prior to that, in August last year, Denis Solodovnikov became Pristanskov's Deputy in charge of IT; he is a former deputy head of the Russian State Register, where he, in particular, was involved in monitoring the quality of public services. The new team will be engaged state property management and monitoring, which is also one of the key tasks of the ministry.