June 8, 2016 (kachkin.ru)
The project of the hotel Jumeirah on Nevsky Prospect, 7-9, passed to Sberbank, which lent to the investors of the hotel. As in the past crisis, banks are collecting problem assets for debts. Sberbank will take over the project of creating a five-star hotel at the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Malaya Morskaya Street. In spring, the project was transferred to the bank that lent its investor – the company “IFG-Basis-Project”, which through the IFG Basis Foundation is associated with the ex-top manager of “Basel” Evgeny Tonkacheev and his business partner Konstantin Sokolov. The project is likely to be handled by Sberbank Capital, which manages assets transferred to the bank from debtors.
Mortgage hotel
IFG-Basis-Project LLC since 2010. According to the investment agreement with Smolny (http://whoiswho.dp.ru/cart/company/83905/), it is trying to turn into a five-star hotel a building with the area of 9.2 thousand m2 on Nevsky Prospect, 7-9, where Aeroflot’s central cash offices used to be located. The hotel was supposed to open its doors in 2014, but is still not ready. Although it has already been found The operator is Jumeirah Arab network. According to ” SPARK-Interfax (http://whoiswho.dp.ru/cart/company/2919428/)”, in April 2016 PAO became the owner of “IFG-Basis-Project” through several legal entities. “Sberbank”. So Wavelberg House, which was built in the early twentieth century for the bank, again becomes a banker. The press service of Sberbank confirmed that the bank got control over the asset “as part of the work with troubled debt.
General Director of “IFG-Basis-Project” Ilya Sokolov noted that Sberbank has become a participant in the restructuring of accounts payable. “Sberbank with the involvement of outside construction experts completes the expertise of the project,” – they say in the press service of the bank, adding that in parallel, work is being done to find investors to complete the work, and the bank is considering the possibility of completing it independently. Arrangements with the Jumeirah operator remain in place.
In addition to the rights to the investment project “IFG-Basis-Project” owns 1.6% of the building, the rest is owned by the city. Earlier, Sberbank opened two credit lines to the company – for $ 15 million and $10 million. Pledge on the loans were the rights to the investment agreement to create a hotel – his bank estimated at 5.09 billion rubles (approximately $79.3 million), but for the pledge was used a discount of 40% (a total of 3.05 billion rubles, (~$47.6 million). The deadline for fulfilling obligations under the contracts was only in 2023 and 2024. But it seems that the investor stopped servicing the loans.
“Sberbank Capital” has already completed complex projects of borrowers. This division, which was created specifically to work with troubled assets in the previous crisis, completed two skyscrapers in Moscow City (http://whoiswho.dp.ru/cart/company/2938656/), the resort “Gorki-Gorod” and other facilities.
United Chicago.
It is interesting that the final beneficiaries of the project on reconstruction of former airlines were unknown for a long time. He was connected then with billionaires Mikhail and Boris Zingarevich, and then with former Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg Yuri Molchanov, who denied his participation. But in the end it turned out that “IFG-Basis-Project” through the international fund IFG Basis belonged to Konstantin Sokolov and Evgeny Tonkacheev. The latter himself told about IFG Basis to the Chicago MBA alumni magazine. University (Chicago Booth Magazine) in 2014.
Evgeny Tonkacheev was CEO and then Managing Director of Basic Element company Oleg Deripaska in 2001.
(http://whoiswho.dp.ru/cart/person/729416/). In 2006, he headed Eastfield Investment Company (ZAO Eastfield). Through the Chicago University Alumni Association, Tonkacheev met Konstantin Sokolov and invited him to Eastfield. And in 2008 they left the company and founded IFG Basis Foundation.
It is not clear whether the fund’s founders will participate in it now. Ilya Sokolov, commenting on this question, said that “the information that Sokolov
Konstantin Sokolov and Evgeny Tonkacheev are co-owners of the Foundation, not true”. Boris Smirnov is also a co-founder of some companies associated with the Foundation’s projects. It was he who established IFG-Basis-Project in 2009, which was later reregistered as offshore. “As far as I know, this is just a lawyer who established the company. He did not participate in the project implementation,” Ilya Sokolov said.
We need a new contract
Under the investment agreement, IFG-Basis-Project transferred RUB 111 million to the treasury. The investor was to vacate the building himself, but the tenants’ resettlement was delayed. It did not take long to extend the investment agreement; it had to be completed in the pre-election period. In the summer of 2014 the hotel was not ready yet, and Georgy Poltavchenko, then acting governor, was outraged by the restructuring of the building. He did not like the parking device and the planned construction of the attic. By the way, the governor’s childhood memories are connected with the air ticket office building – he lived nearby, and his mother worked at air ticket offices. At the time of the extension of the investment agreement was postponed, but in December the company was allowed to complete the project by June 2016. But the building is still surrounded by a blue building fence. The Investment Committee said that in early June, representatives of “IFG-Basis-Project” said at a special meeting that they hoped to complete the project independently.
The committee specified that after the transfer of rights to the project to Sberbank, the investor has not applied for an extension, but in any case the existing contract will not be extended. If there are grounds for granting the building in a targeted way, a new contract will be concluded with the investor. “The term of the new contract will be determined by the investor himself. The maximum term can be 10 years”, – they say in the committee, pointing out that most of the work has already been completed.
More problems
Simultaneously with “IFG-Basis-Project” to Sberbank (http://whoiswho.dp.ru/cart/company/27508/) has passed the project of LLC “Gerda” on construction of a cinema-concert complex on a place of a cinema “Prometheus” on prospect Prosveshchenie, 80. By indirect signs, this project was also handled by IFG Basis beneficiaries.
The founder of Gerda was Boris Smirnov, and then it became registered for offshore locations. Ilya Sokolov confirmed that IFG Basis was a shareholder of the project, but minority.
The number of such examples when the rights to real estate or investment projects are transferred to banking structures is growing. For example, VTB (http://whoiswho.dp.ru/cart/company/17861/) in late March became the owner of the Eurasia Tower with an area of 193 thousand m2. The high-rise in Moscow city was transferred to the bank as a result of the debt of Suleiman Kerimov’s structures. Alfa Bank is trying to get control over the shopping center “Fili” through the court, also against the debt.
In retail banks the situation is the same: “VTB 24” said that recently began to receive more objects pledged, mainly apartments.
The number of cases requiring recovery on the pledged property is growing. Dmitry Nekrestyanov, head of the real estate and investment practice at Kachkin & Partners, calls it a forced measure. This is only an indicator of the crisis: if there is no money to be foreclosed on, we have to take property,” he says, “At the same time, any investment project is a non-core activity of the bank and is more of a headache than some real benefit”.