Not childish schemes of Alexander Mamut or how an adultery lover lives. Budget money covered with Mamut
46-year-old oligarch Alexander Mamut is a determined man: when he likes a lady, he seeks her with all his might. The magnate was never embarrassed by the married status of the chosen one. Not so long ago, under his onslaught, a strong family collapsed, which was very famous in the bohemian circles of St. Petersburg.
Mamut is one of the most closed oligarchs in Russia, he has a lot of weight in power structures. It is known that he first showed interest in married women in 1993, when he recaptured his wife Nadezhda from Andrei Brezhnev, the grandson of the "stagnant" general secretary. After that, as a noble man, he married her, but the marriage ended in tragedy - 40-year-old Nadezhda died of pneumonia. And now Alexander is raising her three sons: two older boys are the children of Nadezhda from her first marriage.
Last year, Alexander Mamut again successfully attacked a married woman. As a result, the daughter of film director Pavel Chukhrai, Nastya, broke up with her husband-restaurateur Anton Tabakov, the offspring of a famous acting family. The novel was passionate, but short-lived - Mamut fell in love with another.
A solution of materialism
The new passion of the banker was 28-year-old fashion designer Alena Akhmadulina (real name - Asfirova), a native of a remote village near St. Petersburg. Until recently, she was the wife of St. Petersburg producer Arkady Volk, the marriage lasted seven years, and all this time, in the eyes of others, they seemed like an ideal couple. The wolf, using his many connections in the world of show business, helped his wife in arranging a career. Alena Akhmadulina achieved recognition a year and a half ago, when her models at Fashion Week in Paris were shown on the most prestigious first day along with world brands. Then in the magazine "Elle" a publication was dedicated to the couple. Journalists wrote: "The most stable marriages are those in which romance is mixed with a strong solution of materialism." Now the abandoned spouse was convinced of this from his own experience. Mamut clearly has more "materialism".
Date at Sobchak
Together, Akhmadulina and Mamut appeared in public at the birthday party of TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak on November 20. The photographers there were under strict control, so the pictures where they were captured together were not leaked to the press. However, many publications mentioned their joint arrival. It's funny that after a banquet in the elite institution "Le Club", Ksyusha's guests moved to the karaoke club "Silla", where Mr. Mamut performed Vakhtang Kikabidze's song "Seeing off Love" for them.
It is currently known that the lovers flew away to rest in Italy on the oligarch's private plane. In particular, they visited one of the centers of world fashion - Milan, where Mamut showered his girlfriend with expensive gifts. Their honeymoon continues.
© "Kompromat.Ru", 27.01.2005
Mamut connection
How to make money on oil without oil
Nikolay Rogachev
Alexander Mamut is the most mysterious Russian oligarch. Everyone knows his name, everyone knows the degree of his influence, everyone has heard about his wealth, but what kind of capital Alexander Leonidovich is turning over is almost a state secret. In any case, in the Forbes list of 100 the richest people he did not enter the country, but the lower limit of this list is only 210 million dollars. It is unlikely that anyone seriously believes that Mamut is not able to scrape together such crumbs. Meanwhile, few people know how and on what the tycoon makes money today. And very few guess to connect his career with oil.
oil drain
2005 will be the year of Gazprom in Russia. Some people hope for it, some people fear it, but everyone assumes so. But whether the growth of the monopolist and its transformation from gas to oil and gas (with an emphasis on the first half of the word) will turn into the embodiment of state and public interests, or whether everything will result in another division of property is a huge question.
It all started on September 13, 2004, when Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a plan submitted to him by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov to merge Rosneft with Gazprom. The essence of the transaction was as follows: 100% of the shares of the state oil company Rosneft are quietly changing for 10.7% of the shares of Gazprom. Analysts close to the Kremlin immediately passed off this move as yet another victory for the authorities over the oligarchy. They say that now the state will have a controlling stake in the gas concern and its securities will finally become available to foreigners. In general, everything is in the name of liberalization, etc. etc.
However, independent experts believe that the creation of an oil and gas giant is only the first step in an intricate multi-move. As Aleksey Melnikov, an expert in the fuel and energy sector, said then in an interview with MN: “They decided to create a supercompany from Gazprom and Rosneft, and it is possible that in the future the people who gained control of this monster company will try it one way or another privatize. Of course, for your own benefit.”
It is curious that the newspaper Zavtra spotted behind that “deal of the year” the figures that were by no means officially in charge of the companies of Dmitry Medvedev and Igor Sechin, but the presidential adviser Igor Shuvalov and businessman Alexander Mamut. And then (09/23/2004) she brought a reference to the latter: “Well known as the“ financial genius ”of the Yeltsin family in 1996-1999, who, along with Roman Abramovich and Oleg Deripaska, played an important role in many loud and quiet scams of that time, not excluding the “missing” $4 billion of an IMF loan that served as a “trigger” for the 1998 default.”
Just in case, let us recall who, besides Mamut, is included in the respectable “family”. According to the Kompaniya magazine (N46, 2000), these are the notorious Roman Abramovich, Semyon Vainshtok (President of Transneft), Oleg Deripaska, Boris Berezovsky and others, who control officials of the highest class: from presidential aide Igor Shuvalov to Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov.
Moreover, in this group, observers assign the most responsible roles to Alexander Mamut: generating ideas, banking cover, communication with special services, and working with personnel. In other words, lobbying for the interests of the family, including oil interests.
Devil's Advocate
Alexander Mamut avoided the attention of Forbes not by chance. His fortune is scattered among dozens of companies: 10 percent of the shares here, 15 percent there. Mamut does not have his own large companies today, and in the near future he is unlikely to think of acquiring them: yes, he does not really need them. Its main capital is not securities, but connections, thanks to which money can be made from oil, even without having its own pipe.
But Alexander Mamut could have turned out not so much as a behind-the-scenes oilman as a good lawyer, and hereditary one at that. His mother Cecilia Lyudvigovna at one time participated in the so-called Uzbek “cotton business”. Father Leonid Solomonovich first taught "legality" in a number of metropolitan universities, and then became Yeltsin's speechwriter and, at the same time, one of the drafters of the current Russian Constitution. It goes without saying that the parents decided to give an appropriate education to their beloved child, having attached it to the English special school No. 17, which in those years was located not far from their house on Semenovskaya.
Studying in the seventeenth was not easy. Teachers gradually got rid of children from working-class families, and then from those who were lagging behind (regardless of the ranks and positions of their parents). Mamut, despite his very explosive nature, managed to hold on. Sanya's classmate Shura Lebedev (now a State Duma deputy, the owner of Aeroflot and, in general, the head of the entire National Reserve Group) also finished his studies to the last grade. School friends maintain a close relationship to this day. And in 1977, Sanya entered the law faculty of Moscow State University.
“At that time, freedom-loving university youth gathered in the university hall near the elevators, which we called the “net”. Including Sanya, - recalls Vladimir Kara-Murza, who at that time was in close contact with Mamut. - We treated subbotniks, vegetable warehouses with irony, we could even skip the history of the party. Right there, in the "net", they smoked, although it was forbidden, threw off a ruble for port wine or sent a messenger for beer ... "
Beer libations were not in vain for Mamut. After graduating from Moscow State University in 1982, he never got to the coveted “warm” place, and worked for eight years as an ordinary lawyer in a legal consultation on Bolshaya Semenovskaya, until he decided to create his own law firm with the uncomplicated name “ALM” - Alexander Leonidovich Mamut.
By the way, the same initials today flash in the names of a dozen structures and companies, and not all of them are related to the legal profession. There are construction offices, and trading, even its own cinema and night club. Plus, dozens of other firms owned or controlled by Mamut are listed in various analytical reports.
For a former lawyer, you must admit, it’s not weak, but, apparently, Mamut, before others, understood the truth voiced by Al Pacino in one of the blockbusters: our world is ruled not only by the devil, but also by lawyers who, on duty, are associated with very big money.
So, it is believed that it was the lawyer Mamut who invented in 1993 a cunning operation with the infamous “webs”, during which the debts of the state enterprise were privatized private company, which then presented an invoice for payment to the state. As a result, Russia lost (and Mamut and his comrades earned) millions of "greens". In addition, Mamut expressed a desire to pay off the Indian debt to Russia in the amount of $150 million through own bank“Project Finance Company” (KOPF). The banker intended to buy back 6 billion rupees in rubles at a rate that was understated by more than 5 times. It is noteworthy that these dubious transactions in the White House were actively promoted by Mikhail Kasyanov, who at that time was in charge of external debt in the government, and Kasyanov's then boss Alexander Shokhin.
It would be appropriate to add here that Yeltsin's entire election campaign in 1996 was financed through fraud with VEBs, that is, according to the "Mamut scheme." Thanks to which ALM entered the Family.
Family Lobbyist
Initiation into members of the venerable family took place in the same 96th. In the election year, the KOPF officially contributed 280 million rubles to the electoral fund of Boris Yeltsin. This helped Mamut to make friends with Yumashev and Dyachenko, and at the same time become close to the chairman of the Security Council Boris Berezovsky and adviser to the head of the presidential administration Alexander Voloshin.
But he developed the closest relationship with the family oil industry. The businessman's acquaintances assure that ALM is connected with Roman Abramovich not just by business, but by strong male friendship. On the birthday of the Chukotka governor Mamut, it is simply impossible to meet in Moscow: he flies either to the Cote d'Azur, or to Switzerland, in general, to where the hospitable hero of the day sets the table. And they often spend everyday parties together in places still remote, whether it be the Austrian Alpine Hotel Sonne or the Metropol Palace Hotel in Monaco.
However, such friendly relations do not interfere with business relations, on the contrary. It would seem that Mamut's Moscow firm ALM Consulting, which is a member of the British association Eversheds, could have anything in common with the owner of Sibneft and Chelsea? However, one of Mamut's contact numbers was indicated during the registration of Abramovich's company "Branko".
Or another story. With the participation of his own firms, Mamut, together with a certain Grigory Berezkin, organized Slavyanka LLP. In addition, Berezkin is known for the fact that in 1997 he headed the Komi-TEK company, which, using the Sibneft quota, supplied oil products from Russia. Formally, Mamut seemed to have nothing to do with it, and one can only guess about his profits.
Favorable acquaintance turned out to be for Abramovich. For example, when in May 1997 Alfa and ONEXIMbank were officially excommunicated from the tender for the sale of a controlling stake in Sibneft, KOPF Alexander Mamut, along with other structures friendly to Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, took part in the transfer of the oil company to the right hands . Abramovich did not remain in debt. They say that it was he who patronized Mikhail Vanin, a close ALM, in his appointment to the post of head of the State Customs Committee (“Obshchaya Gazeta” of 06/03/99).
In turn, without Mamut's connections in the presidential administration, the division of Slavneft certainly could not have done. As a result, the main competitors - Lukoil and the Chinese - were pushed aside from the competition at the preliminary stage.
Romance with Roman
The joint business of Mamut and Abramovich has reached the point that in neighboring Latvia, for example, their names are used only in tandem. Special thanks here to the French lawyer Alexandre Garez. For the first time his name was heard in 1999, when Garez became a member of the board of directors of Omsk Bacon OJSC, which belonged to structures close to Sibneft. At the same time, the Frenchman's Moscow office was located at the same address as the ALM-Feldmans law office!
In 2001, Garez emerged as a representative of the new owner of the CSKA footballers, the British company Bluecastle Enterprises Ltd, which in turn was backed by the Dutch company MacAsyng Holding BV.
And last year, Mamut-Abramovich's lawyer was already talked about in the Baltics.
There, minority shareholders of Sberbank of Latvia (Latvijas Krajbanka), privatized last year, are still trying to challenge the results of the bank’s privatization, indignant that it was sold cheaply at an auction in which only one buyer participated, and that one was an anonymous offshore company. from the Virgin Islands (“Doxa Fund Ltd”). The offshore company's main competitor, the football-loving MacAsyng Holding BV, has fallen out of the race without raising the bank's price.
Which, in principle, is not surprising, because the founder of Doxa was Investment Bank Luxembourg. It was this Luxembourg office that was one of the settlement banks of Bluecastle Enterprises, the same one that bought CSKA. And in 2001-2002. the only Russian recipient of interbank loans from IBL was Interprombank, chairman of the board and major shareholder which Sergei Kireev once worked financial director Mamutov "Company for project financing".
The question is, why did some Latvian bank surrender to the world-class oligarchs? It's simple: one of its main shareholders "Latvijas Krajbanka" was Aivar Lembergs - the mayor of Ventspils, through the port of which Russian oil is being shipped abroad. The weakening of Lembergs, who oversees the port, promised considerable profits for exporters.
Translobby
Within a few weeks, after the Mamut-Abramovich tandem took control over Krajbanka, its former owner, the actual owner of the port terminal Ventspils nafta, Lembergs, was subjected to severe pressure from the Lithuanian concern Mazeikiu nafta, owned by Khodorkovsky and Co. At that time, Yukos was still merging with Sibneft, so Mamut's solidarity with Khodorkovsky is easily explained.
First, Vainstock’s Transneft, under the pretext of a lack of capacity of the Russian oil pipeline system, stopped supplying oil to Ventspils, then Alexander Shokhin, Mamut’s longtime partner in the RSPP, arrived at Lembergs, and then an ultimatum flew to the Latvian government signed by Yukos First Vice President Mikhail Brudno. In the message, Brudno explicitly threatened: "If the Latvian government does not help Yukos to come to an agreement with Ventspils nafta, then the company will have to export its oil bypassing Latvia." (“Business & Baltic” dated 11.06.2003)
Latvian Prime Minister Einar Repshe immediately reacted - he handed over to the prosecutor's office materials on A. Lembergs, questioning the legality of the port's ownership. The fact is that, according to “Russian Focus” (04/07/2003), “Roman Abramovich’s structures have already helped Repsha become prime minister, and his parties win the parliamentary elections and promise financial assistance in the Latvian presidential elections. And money, as you know, has to be worked off.” So, as you can see, ALM people are needed not only in the Russian top.
By the way, Mamut kept the situation in Latvia under control from the very beginning. Back in 2002 (that is, before the official announcement of the birth of Yukos-Sibneft), the new composition supervisory board"Mazeikiu Nafta", his man, deputy director of the law office "ALM" Pavel Ivlev, entered.
Immediately, ALM once again came in handy and received five years ago control over the pipeline. According to the former head of Transneft, Dmitry Savelyev, during the conflict over this company in 1999, Mamut put pressure on him, demanding his voluntary resignation. It didn't work out. Then Savelyev was asked to leave by people directly from the Kremlin. But, as Yevgeny Kiselev said in his Itogi program (November 14, 1999), it was Mamut who initiated the dismissal of the head of Transneft.
The fact is that ALM had long-standing scores with Dmitry Savelyev. Once Savelyev was one of the leaders of the Nizhny Novgorod oil company"NORSI-Oil", and, according to rumors, owed Mamutov's "Project Finance Company", a certain amount of money. As a result, KOPF, whose owner did not yet have such influence at that time, went bankrupt six months before the 1998 crisis. Therefore, when the opportunity to settle accounts turned up, the post of president of Transneft was taken by Semyon Vainshtok, close to the oligarch.
His people on the transit pipe (Weinstock) and in the State Customs Committee (Vanin) make Alexander Leonidovich an indispensable person not only in the narrow family circle, but also in the entire Russian oil industry, which removes foam from black gold during export-import.
Professional lobbyist
It is no coincidence that Mikhail Vanin is considered Mamut's man: after all, they graduated from the law faculty of Moscow State University in one year. Life was also successful for other classmates of the oligarch. Rashid Meredov, for example, became the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan. Berik Imashev took the post of deputy secretary of the Security Council of Kazakhstan, and last year he managed to marry off his daughter to the grandson of Nazarbayev himself. Jahan Pollyeva, nicknamed “Suslov in a skirt,” rose to the rank of deputy. the head of Putin's administration... And, what is especially valuable, Alexander Mamut is connected with all these people not only by his student past - they still communicate to this day. And with Roman Kolodkin, they also like to kick the ball on the field.
Unlike his businessman friend, Kolodkin went along the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: first he studied maritime law on Smolenka, then he went directly to Kozyrev's apparatus, and then headed the legal department of the ministry. It was in this department that in 1992, after graduating from the university, Igor Shuvalov also ended up. A year after meeting Kolodkin, Shuvalov became a senior lawyer, and then the director of the ALM-Consulting law office. Being a direct subordinate of Mamut, and, I think, not without his support, Shuvalov became the founder of a number of companies, and in 1997, when a wave of privatizations surged and the oligarch needed his own person in the civil service, he was very conveniently appointed first as a deputy. head of the State Property Committee, and in 2000 the head of the government apparatus. Since 2003, Shuvalov (read - Mamut?) Has already been an assistant to the President of Russia.
It is thanks to his people in the Kremlin that Alexander Mamut is rightfully considered the main link between government and business. Mamut (by the way, one of the leaders of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs) had relations with representatives of the latter at the dawn of the new Russian capitalism, when he provided legal support to novice businessmen. Among his acquaintances of that time were Vladimir Potanin, Mikhail Prokhorov, Dmitry Zelenin... “We were all 26-27 years old. Of course we all know each other. I did not work at ONEXIM, but I always had the opportunity to call Volodya Potanin, called him “you,” Mamut once admitted (“Company” - 28.02.2000).
At the same time, Alexander Mamut has practically no enemies, he is too valuable a person to quarrel with him. But friends are everywhere. It was this universality that allowed ALM in August 1999 to head MDM-Bank, where he not only really worked, but was considered a kind of “looking” from Berezovsky.
It is generally accepted that Mamut is the same “wedding chairman” in his current position as head of the Troika Dialog investment company. Indeed, as an independent businessman, Mamut is not very lucky: his main brainchild, the KOPF Bank, went under the hammer a few years ago. He did not win laurels as head of the RSPP working group on financial and stock market. But the value of ALM is completely different - in its lobbying capabilities. As some entrepreneurs admit:
Mamut is invited to different companies just because of his connections. He is a kind of roof for businessmen, including oil companies.
Photo: tvkinoradio.ru
The largest cinema chains in Russia - Formula Kino and Cinema Park - made an unprecedented act - because of threats from Orthodox activists, they refused to distribute the film Matilda. Literally a few days after that, the most militant of the activists - the leaders of the Christian State organization - were detained, and the whole noisy campaign to ban the film, clearly after signals from "above", began to wane. Both cinema chains, who hurried to play it safe, belong to Alexander Mamut, who in Yeltsin's time had a reputation as a "Family cashier", and now - an influential media mogul. So far, his political instincts have not betrayed him ...
Don't burn for Matilda
On September 27, 2016, in the Evening Urgant studio, a frightened curly-haired man, clinging to the arms of his chair, answers the questions of the “How billionaire are you” test from some women's magazine. “You want to see the movie. Your actions: 1) you download it from the Internet for free; 2) buy a ticket to the cinema; 3) buy a cinema, ”the host reads out. “Of course, the third option,” squeezes out Alexander Mamut, at that time the owner of a fortune of $ 2.4 billion.
By this time, Mamut really had a cinema - the art-house Pioneer on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, and the billionaire was already eyeing the oldest in Moscow, Khudozhestvenny (in December 2016, Mamut entered into an agreement with the Moscow government for a 20-year lease of a historical cinema in exchange for reconstruction). However, the desire to "watch the movie" did not stop there. At the end of March 2017, the billionaire completed the purchase of the largest Russian network cinemas "Cinema Park" from the son of Senator Suleiman Kerimov, and in April acquired "Formula Kino" from the company "A1" Mikhail Fridman and partners.
Now every seventh cinema hall in the country has passed into the possession of a billionaire.
Photo: cran.vdpopskov.ru
According to the Cinema Fund, the combined network accounts for about 20% of the box office of films in Russia and an average of 18-19% of the box office of the largest Russian films.
In less than six months, Mamut cinemas were at the center of the scandal surrounding the film by Alexei Uchitel "Matilda". When the film received a distribution certificate from the Ministry of Culture, Orthodox activists began to threaten the management of cinemas that were going to show Matilda. In September, a resident of Irbit, Denis Murashov, who was previously on a psychiatric register, drove a UAZ into the doors of the Cosmos concert hall in the center of Yekaterinburg, after which he set his car on fire. Then unidentified persons set fire to two cars near the Moscow office of the Teacher's lawyer Konstantin Dobrynin and scattered leaflets with the slogan "Burn for Matilda."
Photo: Konstantin Dobrynin/Facebook.com
After that, Cinema Park and Formula Kino announced that in the interests of the safety of the audience, they would not show the film. Other networks did not follow suit. The opinions of observers were divided: some suspected that the authorities were behind Mamut’s decisions, others attributed everything to his personal fears, while others even considered that in this way the businessman wants to draw attention to an alarming situation, since law enforcement agencies do not interfere with the radicalism of Orthodox activists.
At the end of March 2017, the billionaire completed the purchase of the largest Russian cinema chain Cinema Park from the son of Senator Suleiman Kerimov, and in April he acquired Formula Kino from A1, Mikhail Fridman and partners. Now every seventh cinema hall in the country has passed into the possession of a billionaire
“I didn’t hear anyone from the administration (president) recommend this to him,” says one of Mamut’s old friends, “But if the state has not bothered to show any pogromists that they are severely punished for this, then what to do? To demonstrate to someone courage and integrity in the struggle for freedom, etc., substituting the audience?
As far as one can judge from Mamut's biography, such caution and political foresight are quite typical for him.
From Kolkhoznaya Square to the Kremlin
It should be noted that Mamut himself does not fully consider himself a businessman. “Usually, when they ask me to introduce myself, I say: “like a businessman.” These two articles in Russian - “type” and “as if” - they remove responsibility, ”he admitted in an interview with Sobesednik six years ago. It would be more correct to call him an investor with connections.
He met many of those at the top of the Forbes list back in the late 1980s in an office building on Sukharevskaya (then Kolkhoznaya) Square. Mamut, a post-graduate student of the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University, registered his firm ALM-Consulting there (a few years later, another young lawyer, Igor Shuvalov, now First Deputy Prime Minister and one of the richest Russian officials, will get a job here). Next to ALM, which stands for "Alexander Leonidovich Mamut", there were offices of Vladimir Potanin, Mikhail Prokhorov, Oleg Boyko. Dmitry Zelenin, the future governor of the Tver region, and at that time the founder of the Mikrodin company, which traded computers and calculators, also sat there. This was Mamut's first client. “We were all 26-27 years old. Of course we all know each other. I didn’t work at ONEXIM, but I always had the opportunity to call Volodya Potanin, called him “you,” Mamut later recalled.
Vladimir Potanin. Photo: celebritynetworth.wiki
In 1990, he became a co-founder of the Imperial Bank, widely known in those years. Then, however, he left the number of shareholders, but he introduced his successors to the leadership of Gazprom, which allowed Imperial to become the settlement bank of the gas monopoly and serve its export contracts for several years. By that time, Mamut had at least interesting client- Boris Berezovsky
“Bora then had to streamline his business, and for a number of difficult questions very qualified legal assistance was required, ”said one of Boris Abramovich’s colleagues in the early 2000s. “Alexander turned out to be a good lawyer who understands complex financial issues.”
In 1996, when Berezovsky wanted to buy Promstroibank, Mamut negotiated on his behalf (the parties did not reach a deal). In addition, he became friends with Berezovsky's then partner, Roman Abramovich. In general, he entered the inner circle, as they said then, of the Kremlin "Family" - and even managed to work on a voluntary basis as an adviser to the head of the presidential administration, Alexander Voloshin.
1. Boris Berezovsky. 2. Roman Abramovich. Photo: pubboard.ru
During the Duma and presidential elections of 1999-2000, these facts came to the surface for the first time through the efforts of political opponents of the Family. Abramovich and Mamut began to be called "gray Kremlin cardinals and" cashiers of the Kremlin.
“Terrible Mamut is actually a modest, intelligent, smart, subtle person. With brilliant humour. He is just as affected as I am. They made a monster out of him. For what? - the daughter of President Yeltsin, Tatyana Dyachenko, lamented then in an interview with Ogonyok. - It seems to me that the feeling of danger from these people (Abramovich and Mamut) is inspired in society by the fact that they did not know where they came from. They had just been "nobody", but became "everyone". We have it as it should be: gradually, at first it became something, then something, and so on - to the top. And they - right away! And instantly caught up with the famous. How so? Clearly something is not right!”
IN 1990, MAMUT BECAME A CO-FOUNDER OF THE WIDELY KNOWN IMPERIAL BANK IN THE YEARS. THEN, TRUTH, HE LEFT THE SHAREHOLDERS, BUT INTRODUCED HIS SUCCESSORS TO THE MANAGEMENT OF GAZPROM, WHICH ALLOWED IMPERIAL TO BECOME A SETTLEMENT BANK OF THE GAS MONOPOLY AND TO SERVICE ITS EXPORT CONTRACTS FOR A FEW YEARS
Unexpected "Discovery"
“He never acts alone, he always preferred to do business with someone, and he himself likes to be, as it were, on the side, on the sidelines,” one of the former business partners Mamut. - Imagine that you have opened paid toilet and as the owner of the first pee. And Sasha was standing next to him. He will come to you in a month and ask for income from one urinal: "Well, I was here, I saw how you did everything here."
However, over time, Mamut himself learned to play big.
In September 2008, unexpectedly for the market, Mamut acquired 100% of the largest cellular retailer Evroset from the founders of the company Evgeny Chichvarkin and Timur Artemyev - and actually saved them from arrest. Prior to this, the owner of AFK Sistema, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, wanted to buy Euroset, and Chichvarkin and Artemiev had already concluded an exclusive offer with him for the sale of Euroset. However, closer to the end of the offer, a criminal case was opened against Chichvarkin, in which they began to detain top managers of the company. Chichvarkin secretly agreed on a deal with Mamut and, having deceived surveillance, fled Russia an hour before being called for interrogation by the Investigative Committee.
Mamut soon resold for $226 million 49.9% of the mobile retailer to Vimpelcom (whose shareholders are the structures of Mikhail Fridman, who also participated in secret negotiations with Chichvarkin and Artemiev), and in 2012 - the remaining 50% to MegaFon and 0.1 % to the same VimpelCom for a total of $ 1.07 billion. Chichvarkin and Artemyev, by his own admission in an interview with Dozhd, paid $ 350 million for the entire company.
In September 2008, unexpectedly for the market, Mamut acquired 100% of the largest cellular retailer Evroset from the founders of the company Evgeny Chichvarkin and Timur Artemyev - and actually saved them from arrest ... Chichvarkin secretly agreed on a deal with Mamut and, deceiving surveillance, fled Russia an hour before being summoned for interrogation to the Investigative Committee
Of course, this is not always the case. For example, the story of Otkritie Bank, where Mamut is one of the shareholders, is unlikely to end in the same triumphant commercial sense. However, Mamut invested in Otkritie according to the usual, not too risky scheme: he is only one of the seven shareholders of the troubled bank.
Internal censor
“Freedom is, of course, an inner state. Often they talk about it as a system of exclusively external circumstances, but for me it is what is inside, - Mamut argued in an interview with Ogonyok magazine. - In Soviet times, I worked as a legal adviser at a factory. It is clear that I was in a tight schedule and in general in such a rather unromantic frame of reference, but I felt completely free.
In today's conditions, Mamut now and then makes decisions that make one doubt his love of freedom.
In 2013, the billionaire merged his media business with the assets of an old acquaintance of Potanin. He transferred the Rambler Internet portal and the Afisha publishing house to Rambler & Co, and Mamut transferred the Soup company (LiveJournal blog hosting, Gazeta.ru, Lenta.ru, etc.). Potanin's assets earned more and cost more, but the partners received parity shares, and Mamut became the managing partner (in exchange, Potanin received the right to sell his stake to Mamut at a fixed price after 2.5 years - and sold it for $ 270 million in December 2016, when option has expired).
In today's conditions, Mamut now and then makes decisions that cast doubt on his love of freedom.
Mamut (unlike Potanin, Alisher Usmanov or Mikhail Prokhorov, who were not directly involved in the management of their media empires) became the CEO of Rambler in 2014 and soon began to clean up the mess with an iron fist.
In March of the same year, without explanation, he dismissed the editor-in-chief of Lenta.ru, Galina Timchenko, who, over 10 years of work in this post, made the news site one of the most popular in Runet. According to Timchenko, her dismissal was due to a warning from Roskomnadzor for a hyperlink to an interview with the leader of the Ukrainian nationalist organization Right Sector * Dmitry Yarosh to a third-party resource. Together with Timchenko, 56 employees left the editorial office - many of them joined her own project Meduza.io, which actually occupied the Lenta.ru niche in the Russian-language Internet.
Soon, a referendum was held in Crimea on the region's entry into Russia. There were no more inconvenient publications on Lenta.ru about this, because the publication was headed by a trusted person - Alexei Goreslavsky, former Chief Editor pro-Kremlin Internet resource Vzglyad. In 2016, he went on promotion, heading the entire Mamut media holding.
And in the summer of 2017, it became known that Goreslavsky was moving to work in the presidential administration. On the eve of the 2018 presidential election, he was offered to oversee online media. The editor-in-chief of Lenta.ru was appointed 23-year-old editor Vladimir Todorov, who in the very first interviews began to criticize well-known liberal journalists.
A source at Rambler & Co told the Dozhd TV channel that Mamut wants to optimize resources in his media holding - he discussed the future of the holding in the Kremlin, and there he was recommended to focus on young people in view of the upcoming elections. Soon, new layoffs of journalists and editors began at Lenta.ru and Gazeta.ru.
A source at Rambler & Co told the Dozhd TV channel that Mamut wants to optimize resources in his media holding - he discussed the future of the holding in the Kremlin, and there he was recommended to focus on young people in view of the upcoming elections. Soon, new layoffs of journalists and editors began at Lenta.ru and Gazeta.ru
“If there is no fundamental cultural environment in a society, the struggle for power will not lead to a new model. We had free elections in 1991, and in 1993 Alexander Korzhakov turned out to be the most influential person, ”Mamut said five years ago in an interview with Snob (the last media asset of the ONEXIM group, which Mikhail Prokhorov recently abandoned).
Apparently, the "fundamental cultural environment"In Russia, which the businessman dreams of, has not yet been formed - and therefore you have to follow the lead of the one that is: be the first to join the protesters against Matilda, without waiting for either instructions from the Kremlin or the reaction of law enforcement agencies.
* An organization banned in Russia as extremist.
The Investpro company has announced liquidation and may soon be declared bankrupt. It was in the bowels of this LLC, which until recently belonged to the oligarch Alexander Mamut, that about 5 billion rubles of the Otkritie bank disappeared.
FC Otkritie is trying to get its 4.7 billion rubles through the Moscow Arbitration Court, which Investpro LLC owes to it. But this is unlikely to succeed - in April the debtor announced its liquidation, and the court is now awaiting consideration of two lawsuits to declare Investpro bankrupt, reports The Moscow Post correspondent.
The owner of Investpro is Accles Holdings Limited, which also owned a 6.7% stake in Otkritie Holding and was recently owned by businessman Alexander Mamut. In August 2017, he sold it. By a strange coincidence, less than a week after that, the Central Bank announced the reorganization of FC Otkritie.
Formally, now from Mr. Mamut, what is called "bribes are smooth." The company has been sold and claims should be made to its new owner - to CEO"Investpro" Alexander Bukharin. At the same time, market participants suspect that the new owner is more likely to be a "zits-chairman" since, according to open sources, already in October, that is, a month after the sale, there were no funds on the company's accounts to pay off obligations. And Investpro has as much as 15 billion rubles worth of bonds, and defaulted on all of them. Who in their right mind would buy such an asset?
Pay, Shura, pay!
This is exactly how, paraphrasing Ilf and Petrov (and quotes from their works are just asked when you get acquainted with the success story of Mr. Mamut), you can describe the reaction to the news about Otkrytie's attempt to return Alexander Lebedev's billions. In his " Twitter"A school friend and former business partner of Mr. Mamut wrote: "Maybe the owner of Investpro and former shareholder bank A. Mamut will sell his Kibo superyacht and return the money to the state, which spent 1 trillion to save the "Discovery"? "
But here Lebedev is wrong. After all, Investpro no longer belongs to his classmate. And the connection between the yacht or any other property of Mr. Mamut and the missing almost 5 billion rubles still needs to be proven. And here one Arbitration Court you won't get around.
What is the arbitration court? Yes, he recognized Otkritie's demands as legitimate and decided to collect money from the debtor. But how to recover if, according to FINAM, on the accounts of Investpro, as they say in a well-known joke, "a mouse hung itself"?
All they can count on in Otkritie is the shares of the Migcredit microfinance organization, which are owned by Migcredit Holdings Limited. And 23% of the shares of this company, in turn, are pledged to Investpro, which has been actively lending to Cypriot offshore companies. So at the end of 2015, Migcredit Holdings Limited was issued a loan secured by shares, the value of which was estimated at about 4.6 billion rubles. It's just magic numbers!
Experts believe that in the event of bankruptcy of Investpro, it is this asset that will have to be seized and put up for auction by bailiffs. But besides Otkritie, the company also owes money to other banks. For example, Promsvyazbank, which is also being rehabilitated. So it is unlikely that Otkritie will be able to return all its billions. They say that Mr. Mamut is not such a person that it is so easy to part with the money that has fallen into his hands.
Mamutovsky business
The Forbes publication cites one of Alexander Mamut's statements about himself: "A businessman from me is like a bullet from something." And indeed, a banker, for example, he is not very lucky - the KOPF bank, which he led in the 1990s, eventually went bankrupt. But, as the businessman himself claimed, a valuable telephone book appeared - in vain, for example, Sibneft was the bank's clients? So, for example, together with the future Tula governor Vladimir Gruzdev, Mamut was a co-founder of the Seventh Continent retailer, and KGB General Vladimir Makarov, who later headed personnel management Boris Yeltsin's presidential administration. Surely there were in the businessman's phone book such names as Boris Berezovsky, Roman Abramovich and Valentin Yumashev, whom Mamut helped with legal word and deed.
Alexander Mamut
Apparently, thanks to these connections, Mr. Mamut got access to the state budget. It was then that, according to the media, the true talents of the oligarch were revealed. And here again Ilf and Petrov and their Ostap Bender are remembered, with whom one just wants to compare Alexander Mamut. Ostap, as you know, knew four hundred comparatively honest ways of taking money. No one has counted how many such methods Mr. Mamut has, of course, but obviously there are also quite a few.
So, in the 1990s, the media mentioned the businessman in connection with the so-called “web deals”, when the debts of a state enterprise were privatized by a private company and then presented for payment to the state. It is believed that it was Mamut who came up with the scheme in 1993, due to which Russia lost millions of dollars.
And in 1994, Alexander Mamut wanted to start operations to repay the Indian debt to Russia in the amount of $150 million. He allegedly offered to buy out 6 billion rupees in rubles at a rate that was understated by more than 5 times. Of course, through the KOPF bank. The idea was supported by Mikhail Kasyanov and his then boss Alexander Shokhin. However, the Ministry of Finance and VEB ultimately did not allow Mamut to deal with debt.
The media also wrote that Mamut also authored the scheme, according to which, before the 1996 elections, the state transferred securities to bankers at a discount of up to 70% under the pretext of a lack of money in the budget. Then these papers were redeemed already at face value, and the difference of 70% was divided between the pre-election fund of Boris Yeltsin and the bank.
I also recall the scandal with Sobinbank, on the board of directors of which he was Mr. Mamut. American law enforcement agencies in 1998 suspected the bank of laundering the IMF tranche through the Bank of New York(BONY). At the end of 1999, searches were carried out in Sobin - they were looking for confirmation of the bank's connection with BONY. And journalists wrote that Mamut controlled not only Sobin, but also MDM, and both banks were credited with a key role in organizing capital flight abroad.
"Credit History" Mamut
Yes, when it was, some will exclaim and add that now the times have changed. Times may have changed, but Mr. Mamut is unlikely.
So, for example, in 2015 he became a co-owner of Ideas4retail, the Russian franchise of the British network Hamley’s. Already this year, Hamley's in Russia has encountered difficulties - through the court they are trying to recover about 80 million rubles. The company has accumulated debts of 78.57 million rubles to the manufacturer of children's clothing Gulliver.
These problems do not worry Mr. Mamut very much, he earned more from the deal than he invested. According to media reports, a 40% stake in the franchise cost the businessman 3 billion rubles, and he issued a loan in Otkritie for 5.5 billion rubles. Being a shareholder of the bank, as Alexander Lebedeva claimed, Mamut simply overestimated the value of his share. As a result, 2.5 billion rubles went "to nowhere."
According to the same scheme, the purchase of the Waterstone bookselling network was formalized. Through Cyprus, 100 million pounds were issued, while the real price was only 52 million pounds. The difference was about 5 billion rubles at the time of the transaction. Market participants believe that Mamut also bought out 50% of Rambler & Co from Vladimir Potanin by taking a loan from Otkritie. Moreover, the amount is called no less than 35 billion rubles, twice the real value of the company.
Needless to say, Mr. Mamut uses elegant schemes, it is not so easy to understand them. Unless law enforcement officers finally become interested in the fate of money regularly flowing away from the budget. It is possible that they should be looked for where the beautiful yacht of Mr. Mamut is moored. There is no doubt about what to look for. Otherwise, 4.7 billion rubles will disappear into the bottomless pockets of Mr. Mamut. And he, it is possible, will soon come up with new way taking money from the state.
You look at some of the people on the FORBES list and you don’t even know whether to envy or be glad that you live completely different from them. Some of the heroes do serve as an example of how not to live. Among these, another hero stands out especially Ustav.net Alexander Mamut.
"Family" oligarch from the high road
Forbes magazine estimates the fortune of Alexander Mamut at 2.5 billion dollars, and he regularly enters the top 50 richest people in Russia. The commercial biography of Mamut is clear to everyone who is somehow familiar with the criminal Moscow of the nineties. In 93-97 he became a shareholder retail network"Seventh Continent". He believes that this network was close to the merchants who walked "under the Izmailovsky". In 1998, Mamut began to build a career as an official, became an adviser on economic issues in the presidential administration of Russia, and in 99 he was appointed an adviser to the then head of the Presidential Administration Alexander Stalievich Voloshin.
Mamut is considered an oligarch close to Yeltsin's "family", who formed the president's inner circle and were the richest Russians at the beginning of the 2000s. Mamut lobbied for the interests of the Izmailovskys, including Oleg Deripaska, Roman Abramovich and other rich people.
In 1999-2002, he was Chairman of the Board and Director of MDM Bank ( this financial group was considered close to the Izmailovsky) and thus was in close contact with , and other "good people".
Troika Dialog and Ingosstrakh, as well as a number of Internet services, including LiveJournal, also fell into Mamut's sphere of interest. Mamut is named among the participants in the scheme for weaning Evgenia Chichvarkina the Euroset network, becoming the very intermediary through which Chichvarkin's property passed to VimpelCom. As Alexander Malis noted, now Euroset can be milked.
In the middle of the 2000s, Mamut, for obvious reasons, was slightly moved away from power and the “feeding trough”, therefore big money him to earn for the state. monopolies failed - they had to feed on projects in the field of trade and the Internet. At the same time, the managerial talents of the ex-presidential adviser on economics are puzzling - it was under Mamut that the final collapse of the Rambler search engine occurred.
At the same time, he himself is the owner of a number of iconic objects where the Russian elite and the rest of Moscow love to hang out.
Apparently remembering how in the nineties Mamut was close to power and easily "teared" hundreds of millions of dollars, he went all out, making money even on the most dubious projects ...
Money for children
“They don’t save on children”- Alexander Mamut once noted in an interview. But does not save on it and Russian budget, who is forced to feed projects close to Mamut's firm.
A couple of years ago, a scandal erupted in St. Petersburg in connection with dubious purchases of child allowances and funds for the development of children in kindergartens and schools. The procurement investigation was conducted by the St. Petersburg "Communists of Russia", which conducted a procurement audit for a tender for 49 million rubles, which was then won by famous company LLC Center for Educational Competences.
The amounts that Mamut and his firms could claim are impressive - in 2013-2015, over a billion rubles were spent on the development of preschool education, and some of them settled in the pockets of firms close to Mamut in a dubious way.
As a result of the purchase for 49 million rubles, it turned out that toys for kindergartens will be supplied by the Imaginarium chain, which sells super-expensive toys for children.
Imaginarium is part of the Ideas for Retail holding, owned by Evgeny Butman and Alexander Mamut. Butman is associated with the Re: store chain of stores, as well as the Hamley and Mamas Papas chains of stores. Ideas4retail provides franchises.
So, when they began to study the tender documentation for the purchase, it turned out that it was essentially drawn up for one supplier, initially tailored for the one who was planned as the recipient of 49 million rubles.
It's funny, but the smallest nuances of toys are spelled out in the terms of reference, which in the end were purchased.
CSC's rival was Service for Retail CJSC (the name resembles Service for Retail). At the same time, CJSC SDR lost only 250 thousand rubles to the CSC. The obvious agreement in the tender documentation turned out to be that the budget was overpaid for super expensive toys.
Further study of the issue showed that businessman Mikhail Zaydfodim (an Israeli citizen) is associated with Ideas for Retail, and dozens of competitions across the country for supplies for kindergartens and schools are played according to a similar scheme for adjusting tender documentation.
It is interesting that now LLC Center for Educational Competences is in the process of liquidation, but according to open data, he managed to get budget funds for hundreds of millions of rubles:
As you can see, among the customers of the CSC (and hence toys from Mamut and Butman) are the ministries of education of the Moscow, Irkutsk, Tyumen regions and other regions. The total amount of state contracts exceeds 320 million rubles (at the current exchange rate, this is over 5 million dollars).
It is clear that any shekel goes into the piggy bank, but for a billionaire, schemes for some miserable millions of dollars look ridiculous. Or not?
Is Mamut behind the hit on Enlightenment?
A couple of years ago, firms associated with Mamut and Butman competed for a federal contract for the refurbishment of Crimean schools with the well-known publishing house Prosveshchenie. Behind "Enlightenment", according to rumors, is Arkady Rotenberg, and there the lobbying resource is much more serious than that of Mamut.
After the contract sailed to Enlightenment, Mamut and his entourage launched a series of articles on the competitor. It is worth recognizing that there were a lot of interesting things in these materials and Mamut's opponent was no better. Evil tongues even began to talk about the fact that Mamut himself was the one who posted articles about Arkady Rotenberg, and that the articles already concerned not only Enlightenment, but also the proximity of the Rotenberg “judokas” to Vladimir Putin ...
And other adventures of Shurik
A study of the Ideas for Retail holding highlights a connection with a number of companies, for example, with Pantek LLC, which is a recipient of funds from the budget of the Moscow Region. Evil tongues insist that schemes similar to Center LLC were involved there. Educational Competencies". The amounts of contracts are modest - only 12 million rubles. True, now the firms at the legal address of the CSC may be in the process of liquidation. Apparently traces cover up? In a similar situation is "Ventastroy" (the company is not operating), which received more than 9 million rubles for the state. procurement.
Mamut's schemes within the framework of FC Otkritie are also interesting, but this topic does deserve a separate publication. Suffice it to say that five days before the reorganization of Otkritie, Mamut withdrew from the shareholders - apparently, old connections and contacts “lighted out” Shurik “nix” and he draped out of the collapsed bank.
However, if Mamut's financial cleanliness is in doubt, then maybe one can take an example in his secular behavior? And here is a complete disappointment - in open sources Sasha Mamut's name is none other than "lover of other people's wives."
During the 55th anniversary of Mamuta congratulated Roman Abramovich(with wife Daria Zhukova), Alexey Goreslavsky(eyes and ears of Mamut in AP), Julia Skvortsova with her daughter Ksyusha and other famous characters of secular parties.
