USC has found a contractor for Severnaya Verf, which, in fact, has already “thrown” its contractors. The head of the state corporation himself also acted ugly with previous contractors. Did the partners find each other?
Already the third company, RusGuard, will modernize the slipway at the Severnaya Verf shipyard. Where did the billions “mastered” by previous contractors go?
Modernization of the boathouse of the Severnaya Verf shipyard (part of USC – United Shipbuilding Corporation) has been going on for 7 years, but the end is not yet visible. Although the completion of the work was planned in September 2019.
Initially, the construction work was carried out by Metrostroy OJSC, but the contract with it for 6 billion rubles was terminated. At the end of 2021, Severnaya Verf terminated the contract for 7.8 billion rubles with the second contractor, Domestic Systems and Technologies LLC (OST, a major contractor of Rostec Group of Companies), due to a delay in delivery. The amount of the contract with PC “RusGard” is “modestly” silent, but the work should be completed in March 2024.
Where did the volumes of contract financing “mastered” by the previous unfortunate contractors settle? Will RusGuard, far from shipbuilding, become another “laundry” for the “development” of state order money, The Sankt-Peterburg Post figured it out.
PC “RusGuard”
PC “RusGard”, judging by the information of the Rusprofile resource, is far from shipbuilding and large-scale construction in general. The owners of PK RusGuard LLC are equally owned by the company's CEO Alexei Gavrilenko and his partner Maxim Kosyanchuk. This is their only asset.
The company's net profit in 2021 amounted to 14 million rubles with sales revenue of 801 million. To be honest, not impressive numbers for billions of dollars of contracts. Yes, and the scope of “RusGard” – the supply and installation of gas turbine units, electrical equipment for electric power facilities.
But this no longer looks unnatural in the light of events with previous contractors.
Rakhmanov's preludes and broken contracts
According to Kommersant, the financial situation of Severnaya Verf has been unstable lately. The company ended 2021 with a loss of 3.5 billion rubles compared to a profit for 2020 of 173.4 million. At the same time, revenue doubled to 31 billion rubles.
The modernization of the slipway at the shipyard was thought about back in 2015. It was necessary to reconstruct the boathouse so that the plant could build ships of larger displacement. The new facility will allow building ships with a launch weight of up to 25,000 tons. After the implementation of the project, the shipyard was going to start building new generation frigates, landing ships, gas carriers and oil tankers.
But all of a sudden, things didn't go according to plan. Rather, according to a different plan, the explicit purpose of which was to “cut” budget money. The state allocated 7 billion rubles for the modernization of the boathouse.
The first among the “laundries” fell to be the St. Petersburg “Metrostroy”. In 2017, Severnaya Verf signed a contract with him for the above 7 billion rubles. The contractor took an advance payment of 1.4 billion rubles and even began work. “Metrostroy” was supposed to build a slipway with a two-span slipway, and it was supposed to equip it with overhead cranes and self-propelled ship trains. The deadline for the completion of works is the first quarter of 2019.
But… it didn't happen. As “Business Petersburg” wrote, by that time “Metrostroy” had filled the piles and began to carry out the slipway slab. The shipyard had complaints about the quality of work, besides, the deadlines were all over, and the customer terminated the contract with Metrostroy.
And now the most interesting. Of the almost 1.5 billion rubles allocated, Severnaya Verf is demanding that Metrostroy return only 211 million as an unspent advance payment. In September 2021, by decision of the arbitration, the amount was reduced to 147.2 million rubles. And those to get, apparently, not fate. Metrostroy is mired in debt, owing creditors a total of 6 billion rubles.
In September 2020, the new contractor was presented by the head of USC Alexei Rakhmanov himself. At the same time, he previously stated that no one wants to continue “giving such a complex and important project to various kinds of optional people and crooks.”
The work was entrusted to the company “Domestic Systems and Technologies” (OST), which is a major contractor of the State Concern “Rostec” and structures of the Moscow government. The state allocated 7.8 billion rubles for the development of the OST. It was planned to erect a structure with a height of 73.5 meters with overhead cranes with a lifting capacity of 350 tons. It was planned to complete the work on the project in 2021, and by the end of 2022, the laying of the first ship in the modernized shed should already be carried out.
It is easy to guess that this order was also thwarted. This became known in January 2022. And, like a carbon copy with the previous contractor, OST announced that they had completed work worth 1 billion rubles.
Wrong Sistema?
A company with an authorized capital of 10,000 rubles and government contracts worth billions of rubles – doesn't it logically fit? Isn't this all to delay the execution of the contract through the courts again?
Formally, OST is owned by its director Stanislav Nekrashevich (49%) and OOO OST-Finance (51%). The latter is completely controlled by Bariyat Osayeva, a particularly unremarkable businesswoman. However, the real beneficiary of the structure, most likely, is the general director of OST-Finance, Yakov Avrakh. And also – an unknown businessman, about whom there is practically no information on the network. The Moscow Post has already written about this in more detail.
What is the role of the third contractor?
The master of all “rumba”
Meanwhile, PC “RusGard” under the contract is facing a vast amount of work. The general contractor must complete the construction of the shed columns, install ceilings, complete the building cladding, build an administrative building, purchase the machine and crane equipment provided for in the contract.
It is also interesting how RusGard will perform complex work for ” Northern Shipyard” with a team of 86 employees, for whom the shipbuilding industry is like an open book?
And will the contractor be able to finally complete the state order? Since the previous contractors, although they were disgraced, having lost the contract, they completed a certain amount of work. And in the end, USC intended to connect a new artist. For what? For a new cut of money of a new contract? Isn't that why the amount of the contract, unlike the first two performers, was not announced this time?
There is another point not in favor of the new contractor. PC “RusGard” appears in 10 court proceedings, where the amount of claims exceeds 45 million rubles.
For example, on January 29, 2020, RusGuard signed an agreement with the Crimean Soda Plant on the supply of spare parts for the SIEMENS SGT-400 turbine. The amount of the contract amounted to almost 160 million rubles. Under the agreement, the buyer paid 40% of the amount in the first tranche immediately. On January 30, 64 million from the customer came to the account of RusGuard.
However, the goods were not delivered.
What does RusGuard do? Both laughter and sin, as they say.
From the same court decision: “In the submitted response, the defendant explained that the delay in fulfilling the obligations to supply the goods occurred due to the threat of the spread of a new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) on the territory of the Russian Federation.” It's so simple.
The Crimean Arbitration Court decided to pay the customer both an advance payment and penalties, which “ran up” up to 44 million rubles. But in November 2022, the Twenty-First Arbitration Court in Sevastopol saved RusGuard from paying 44 million rubles of a penalty in the claim of the Crimean Soda Plant. The parties miraculously came to an amicable agreement. RusGuard paid only a state duty of 100,000 rubles.
Who helped to avoid serious financial and reputational losses? After all, initially the actions of “RusGuard” “reeked” of fraud. The argument with COVID-19 in the case of the supply of technical equipment is a joke. And now companies with such a reputation trust a multibillion-dollar government order?
If we assume that RusGuard was chosen as the last contractor for the modernization of the boathouse at Severnaya Verf, then the “assistants” in the person of the same Sergey Chemezov and Alexei Rakhmanov. The boathouse is not completed, the amount of the contract is a secret.
How is it with the classics? “Saw, Shura, saw” …
