Defender of capital. How Sergei Kotlyarenko manages the money of the powerful and rich. “The Shuvalov family is not our only clients Sergey Pavlovich Kotlyarenko biography

The First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, issued a power of attorney to her lawyers to manage financial assets and transfer them to Russian jurisdiction. The company of Shuvalov and his wife, it turns out, owned extensive office space in the building of the Moscow Hotel. Now these premises are managed by Sergei Kotlyarenko.

The company of First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and his wife owned more than 10,000 square meters. m of office space in the Moscow Hotel, Vedomosti reports. Before them, the owner was an offshore company, possibly associated with Suleiman Kerimov, and now the owner is the manager of the Shuvalovs.

It started with the fact that the Federal Antimonopoly Service announced on Wednesday: it allows KSP Capital Asset Management LLC to buy 100% of Delovoy Tsentr LLC. Our attention was drawn to the address at which Delovoy Tsentr is registered - Okhotny Ryad, 2; The multifunctional center “Moscow Hotel” is located here.

According to the Unified State Register of Enterprises, Delovoy Tsentr owns 10,257 sq. m on floors from 5th to 10th (not counting parking spaces). On the Moscow website it is indicated that there are offices here, the area of ​​which is even slightly larger - 11,100 sq. m. “Given the unique location of the property,” Elena Denisova, director of the office premises department at CBRE, estimates 1 sq. m. m at $10,000-12,000. That is, “Business Center” costs at least $100 million.

According to SPARK, in August last year, Open Assets LLC became the owner of the Business Center, which, in turn, belongs to First Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov and his wife Olga(they have 49% each). How did the Shuvalovs end up owning offices near the Kremlin?

Who is the buyer

This question was answered Sergey Kotlyarenko- Chairman of the Board of Directors of KSP Capital: this group of companies includes the new owner of the Business Center offices, indicated in the message of the antimonopoly service, and KSP stands for: Sergey Pavlovich Kotlyarenko. The businessman explained that he manages the assets of the Shuvalov family and decided to purchase the “Business Center” by the Open Assets company, but then realized that the asset did not quite correspond to the strategy chosen for Shuvalov’s investment. "Business Center" returned to its former owner. And then a company owned by Kotlyarenko acquired Delovoy Tsentr for its subsequent packaging into a mutual investment fund and offering shares of this fund to several portfolio investors.

Who is the seller

When the First Deputy Prime Minister, even temporarily, becomes the owner of an asset worth $100 million, the question of who the seller is takes on additional relevance. Kotlyarenko refused to name the seller. In SPARK, the previous owner is the Cypriot Garipas Holdings. The Cyprus registry shows that its director was previously Sergei Kalugin, who worked for a businessman for a long time Suleiman Kerimov- in the companies “National Cable Networks” and “National Telecommunications”. Garipas was named as the owner of television channels that were part of National Telecommunications. Kalugin is now the president of Rostelecom, he told Vedomosti that after many years he does not remember who owned Garipas.

Kerimov is one of the owners of the Dekmos company, which owns the Moscow Hotel(his project partners are Arkady Rotenberg and Mikail Shishkhanov). The decision to sell the Business Center was made by Dekmos, reported Tatyana Bashmakova- former general director of Nafta Co. (manages Kerimov’s assets).

Manager Shuvalov

Kotlyarenko said that he has known Shuvalov since he was engaged in legal activities. Kotlyarenko was a student when he came to the law firm where Shuvalov worked as a director. Then Shuvalov invited him to work in the administration of the President of the Russian Federation. In 2004, Kotlyarenko left the civil service and started his own legal business. After a break in communication in November 2007, Shuvalov asked him to take care of the affairs of his family - Kotlyarenko participated in the management of the offshore companies of Shuvalov’s wife.

Last year, the Shuvalovs decided to transfer assets to Russia. “When Shuvalov and his wife realized that a federal law would be adopted banning civil servants from having certain assets abroad,” says press secretary of the First Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Machevsky, “they issued an order to lawyers to transfer all financial assets to those permitted by law of the Russian Federation assets. They issued a general power of attorney to establish a legal entity in Russia necessary for such a transfer. Under this power of attorney, our lawyers created two legal entities - “Open Assets” and “Sova Real Estate”. They repeated the same structure that the Shuvalovs had abroad. The first structure is something like an investment fund that owns assets. The second is all family real estate.” According to SPARK, Shuvalov and his wife each have 49% in both companies.

Both companies are managed by Kotlyarenko. He emphasizes that the companies were initially created on the basis of trust management and the register reflects that they are managed by his “KSP Capital”. “Shuvalov is far from the only client of my group of companies. The management company has about ten significant clients, while the law firm has significantly more. According to the trust management agreement, Shuvalov and his wife cannot interfere with operational management and have no idea what kind of securities were purchased with their funds. In addition, their funds are not invested in enterprises that may be somehow connected with its administrative resource, but only in those assets that exclude the possibility of influence,” says Kotlyarenko.

How legal is this?

But is there a violation of the law in the fact that Shuvalov, being a civil servant, acted as the founder of commercial companies?

“In Russia, it is impossible to establish a legal entity without signing the constituent documents,” explains Machevsky. “Therefore, the only thing the Shuvalovs did was sign documents on the creation of legal entities. But in the statutory documents of these legal entities, from the first day it was written that they act according to the trust management procedure and the founders can return control to themselves only according to a certain procedure and only if this complies with the law. Thus, from the moment of the establishment of these legal entities, the Shuvalovs did not have the right to manage and dispose of these assets. This was done by KSP Capital. According to Machevsky, the Shuvalovs can receive information about the results of the work of Open Assets, which are created to earn profits, once a year, in December, and, accordingly, make a decision on the distribution of dividends. “Sova Real Estate” is not aimed at making a profit, so the regime there is more liberal.

Kotlyarenko also believes that everything is legal: “The Constitutional Court does not consider the activities of shareholders to be entrepreneurial. A prohibition for a civil servant to carry out entrepreneurial activities does not mean a prohibition for him to establish business companies, subject to the immediate transfer of shares in such a company to trust management.”

Lawyers' opinions on this matter are divided.

Civil servants cannot be founders of a commercial company, lawyer says Henry Resnick and Khrenov and Partners lawyer Dmitry Lobachev. “As far as I understand today’s anti-corruption concept, by registering a commercial company, an official becomes a participant, this leaves an imprint of interest on him,” believes Paragon Advice Group partner Alexander Zakharov.

Separately, the issue of creating legal entities by civil servants is not spelled out in the legislation, argues Andrey Porfiryev, partner at Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasyev and Partners. On the one hand, a civil servant is allowed to engage only in scientific, creative and educational activities if they are paid, but on the other hand, the fact of establishment is an “unpaid activity.” Another problem: in Article 10 of the Anti-Corruption Law there is a direct instruction for civil servants to transfer assets into trust management, and in Article 12.3 of the same law - to transfer them only in the event of a conflict of interest or the threat thereof. According to Porfiryev, if the trust agreement was signed immediately after the registration of the enterprise, then there is no violation.

Roman Shleinov
Maxim Tovkailo
Anton Filatov

“Today we were shown apartments of 20 m², it seems funny, but people buy such housing...” This quote from Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov, which he said while inspecting a 20-meter apartment in Kazan, instantly spread across the Internet and acquired the status of a fashionable meme.

Everyone is already pretty tired of the meme, but today we have a wonderful reason to return to it. Look, so to speak, from a new angle.

Everyone probably thought, “in the end, the officials have become brutish in their palaces and state dachas and are laughing at ordinary apartments.” That's exactly how it is. The Deputy Prime Minister responsible for the economy was amused by the fact that it is possible to live on 20 m². And even take out a mortgage to buy such an apartment. It’s funny and unimaginable to him at the same time.

So what's so funny? There are funny things in the news, yes, someone lives in the forest, eats bark and roots - funny, people probably do that. And Russians make smart T-shirts from family panties. A girl draws with her grandfather’s ashes, and Ivanovo children made an image of Russia from garbage. And here is a dwarf with a beard at the circus! Haha. But what’s wrong with apartments in Kazan?

And now I’ll tell you why Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov was so amused. We at FBK have been following Shuvalov for a long time, he is one of our longest-standing heroes. A bunch of materials have accumulated over several years, and among them, the answer to why Shuvalov has no strength, how fun it is, was very successfully found.

Here is a house that needs no introduction. Stalin's skyscraper on Kotelnicheskaya embankment. One of the most grandiose residential buildings in Moscow - five-meter ceilings in the entrance, marble, panoramic views of the Kremlin, rich history.

More than a year ago, we at FBK began receiving messages and letters from residents. “Someone important is buying up apartments here!”, “Motorcades and the Federal Protective Service are approaching the house,” “The construction of the century has begun, all for the sake of some official.”

Well, we looked at all the large apartments in the house, which in our opinion are suitable for bureaucratic scale, we looked - there was nothing. All recent transactions are made by anyone, but not by any official. And the messages kept coming and going. At some point, we decided to do something radical and check all the apartments in the building. And there are 700 of them, just for a minute.

And this is what we found. There really was a powerful landlord in the house. A certain gentleman purchased the central apartment in the main tower in 2014, and then month after month began to literally sweep away the neighboring apartments one after another.

In 2014 I bought 5 apartments. In 2015, he became the owner of four more. Just recently, in May 2016, I bought another one. Total - 10 in two years.

The most important thing: all apartments are located on the same (14th) floor and adjacent to each other.

Apartments in such a building, you understand, are not a cheap pleasure. On the websites there are offers in the region of 45 million for one standard apartment of 60 m². But there are also much more expensive ones.

This means that what the mysterious buyer is doing is very expensive. We need a billionaire here.

The buyer's name is Sergey Pavlovich Kotlyarenko. Let's take a look at this rich man and spender.

Do you recognize? And we don't.

Kotlyarenko is not an oligarch or an oil tycoon. He is not a governor, not a Rockefeller son, or a Hollywood superstar. He's a lawyer.

Let's take a closer look at his biography.

And now into the biography of one very funny official?

Kotlyarenko and Shuvalov are classmates. Since 1999, Kotlyarenko’s career has been inextricably linked with one official - Igor Shuvalov. Shuvalov arranged for him to work wherever he himself served as an official.

And in parallel, Kotlyarenko was entrusted with an even more important function.

He monitored and managed all the Shuvalov family assets (where these assets came from is written in detail here). Even before the Deputy Prime Minister allegedly transferred them to Russia. The shares of the famous offshore Severin, owned by housewife Olga Shuvalova, bear the signature of this particular Kotlyarenko.

Do you remember the “blind trust” to which Shuvalov allegedly transferred all his assets in order to avoid a conflict of interest prohibited by the civil service? Let me remind you that the concept of a “blind trust” is that one person gives his assets for management to a 3rd party, completely independent, not related to him, and has no access to management at all.

So, this “independent” manager of Shuvalov’s assets is also Kotlyarenko.

Here is the Profdir company, 100% owned by Kotlyarenko:

And here is a list of companies that Profdir manages. All three are directly owned by Shuvalov or members of his family.

Let's return to Kotelnicheskaya. This is what the parade of apartments bought by Kotlyarenko looks like now.

A little history to give you a feel.

It all started with the largest apartment in the center. It was purchased in April 2014. As soon as Crimea was annexed to Russia, war began in the East of Ukraine. The ruble was collapsing before our eyes, and people stood in line for televisions and microwaves. But none of this concerns some people. The first apartment is a decent size, 142 m², but the scale is non-governmental, of course. The next month we bought a small apartment on the right, and a month later the one next door. In both cases, the previous residents moved to apartments on other floors of the same building. In October 2014, we bought an apartment to the left of the largest one. In 2015, there were 3 more apartments in the same wing and the missing one in the right. Thus, the entire central part of the building and adjacent apartments were purchased by the end of 2015.

We thought that was all, the complete set could be put together. But no. Just recently, in May 2016, Kotlyarenko buys another apartment, on the same floor, but with a different elevator landing (the leftmost one in the picture). Apparently, the purchase is not over, and in the near future the buyers will be able to collect a royal flush of 17 apartments on the floor.

In almost every case (8 out of 10), the old residents simply moved to the same apartments on other floors of the high-rise. As the residents and neighbors themselves wrote to us, everyone moved more than voluntarily. New apartments were offered with renovation and additional payment. No haggling was required; the buyer agreed to any conditions.

Those whose apartments attracted Shuvalov's attention were undoubtedly very lucky. It's like winning the lottery. You live in an apartment that is already quite expensive, and then a certain lawyer comes to you and offers “any money” for your housing.

Apparently, 10 apartments will be combined into one huge one. Or more than ten, the buying process is clearly not completed yet. The combined apartment of under 1000 m², taking into account the history of the house, panoramic views, marble entrances and fresh renovation of the entire building, will probably become the most expensive and impressive apartment in the capital.

We have no doubt that Kotlyarenko is buying high-rise apartments without bargaining specifically for Shuvalov. For Shuvalov's money.

Our “most honest and transparent official” was embarrassed to openly buy ten apartments with a total area of ​​720 m². It is not appropriate for the Deputy Prime Minister to utter the phrase “I will buy it for any money.” The manager is trying, and then he will re-register only one super apartment.

Why are we sure that this is exactly what will happen? Look, another house. Moscow, st. Kosygina, 8.

The house is located at the very beginning of the street. Kosygin, quite famous and called “Kosygin’s house”, since the latter lived in it. Some relatives, by the way, still live. The house also has provenance, in general.

The story is like a carbon copy only three years ago. Three apartments are bought in one month. Two adjacent ones with a total area of ​​322 m² and one several floors below with a total area of ​​152 m².

Here the apartment is first owned by Kotlyarenko, but now it becomes the property of the Shuvalov family firm “Sova Real Estate” (the London apartment is registered in its name).

One of the apartments (151 m²) was re-registered as the property of Kotlyarenko, for which he received the right to head the local HOA. We asked the locals, they say that it’s not just any Kotlyarenko who lives there, but a “servant.” We don’t know if the Shuvalovs really settled servants there, or if they speak about Kotlyarenko like that.

Here's a story about real estate. I remind you that Shuvalov shouts at every corner that he is the most honest and transparent official and has declared everything. Brags about it, look:

After searching for a relatively short time, the Anti-Corruption Foundation found 13 (!!!) apartments in Moscow with a total area of ​​1200 m² (!!!), which Shuvalov did not mention a word about in his declaration. According to Shuvalov, we are not interested in knowing about them. Look at the declaration for yourself, there is an endless list of real estate, but these 13 apartments are not there. And they should be - Shuvalov may not declare his Rolls-Royce, registering it as a legal entity, but he is obliged to register the real estate.

Stories like this honestly make me furious. Think about it, a person has been in the civil service since 1998. In the past, he was a lawyer for the oligarchs who “hurricaneed in the 90s.” He talks nonsense about the money he earned on the “Sibneft option” from Abramovich. Shuvalov has been “serving the people” for 18 years. And after 18 years of bureaucratic service, he simply imagined himself to be a natural aristocrat. He is not some gray clerk with a dusty office in the government house.

He is an impressive gentleman driving a Rolls-Royce, the owner of extremely exclusive real estate, where historical figures certainly lived before him. The economic crisis, which Shuvalov talks about so insightfully on TV, did not affect his family. An apartment in London for 12 million pounds (this house, by the way, used to be the headquarters of MI6), a castle in Austria, Suslov’s party dacha in Zarechye, Kosygin’s apartment, and now the pearl of his aristocratic collection - an apartment in Stalin's skyscraper.

Excesses and luxury that go beyond any decency - this is about Igor Ivanovich. Family coats of arms, family nests all over the world, dozens of servants - Igor Ivanovich loves it all! A winter garden with exotic plants worth 2 million euros, collectible cars - Igor Ivanovich likes it all!

Looking at these owls on the coat of arms, I wouldn’t be surprised if Shuvalov soon added a “Kommersant” to his surname for greater noble effect.

This is how I imagine Shuvalov’s evening at his estate in Zarechye. In the three-story servants' house, work is in full swing - the cook serves pheasant stuffed with deer, children in the neighboring rooms draw alpine landscapes or play mazurka, oh, good! His daughter runs up to him and says, “Daddy, daddy, the national authorities wrote about you on the Internet that you are an unscrupulous thief, and your option is made up!” And he told her, “Never mind it, mashari, I’m a liberal and a market person, everything will be fine.”

In general, he hangs orders on himself, puts on a camisole, reads documents on stamped paper and rests. Already falling asleep he mutters: “federal program”, “preferential mortgage rate”, “affordable housing”, and then he laughs loudly and loudly, he already woke up - he remembered about your 20 m² apartment, and about the cheese product, and about the economic crisis .

Hang in there, let's go.

Additions about Shuvalov's apartments

I want you to take another look at the plan of Shuvalov’s Tsar’s Apartment. It's incredibly simple. With the money spent only on buying the Kotelnicheskaya high-rise (without repairs, finishing, etc.), it would be possible to buy 600 (!!!) twenty-meter apartments, which Shuvalov laughed at so much in Kazan.

And that's life official and his purchases.

You know this Russian proverb: to whom is war, and to whom is mother dear? This is directly about our hero.

Purchases began immediately after the start of the conflict with Ukraine and sanctions. They continued actively against the backdrop of the economic crisis. Real incomes are falling, food prices are rising, there is nothing to index pensions, and one of the government leaders is buying up luxury real estate by the floor.

It means that we are in a frenzy of patriotism, St. George ribbons and “must rally around the leader, the party and the government,” while they themselves take the goldfish out of this troubled water.

The population, according to Shuvalov, is ready to eat less and use electricity less often in order to support the Kremlin. And what did he refuse? What price is paid for war and crisis? Risking his life, sliding on the marble floor of a new apartment?

Source - navalny.com/p/4939/. There are all links to the documents mentioned in the article

UPD. Kotlyarenko's comments

The asset manager of Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov spoke about the purpose of the apartments purchased in the high-rise on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment, and also revealed the details of the management of the official’s trust.

“The idea was to make a unique object. What to do with it next is the second question. If a quality buyer suddenly appears, you need to sell. Obviously, if the apartments are combined, the property will be sold at a significant premium. This is an investment,” said Sergei Kotlyarenko, asset manager of Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, in an interview with RNS.

According to him, he made the purchases for himself with the purpose of further sales in the interests of a trusted person. When asked whether the object should be reflected in the Deputy Prime Minister’s declaration, Kotlyarenko replied: “Only if he buys it or starts using it.” At the same time, the lawyer emphasized that the apartment could become the property of the Shuvalov family if “we successfully complete everything, annex it and obtain the consent of the residents.”

When asked whether Igor Shuvalov’s asset management is organized according to the “blind trust” principle, the asset manager answered in the affirmative. “This is an American construction, which outwardly and in essence implies the complete elimination of the owner from the management process and even from information. In Russia, at the level of trust management, this does not happen legally. Another thing is that in fact our client can adhere to the rules of a “blind trust”. But according to Russian law, we are obliged to transfer reports to the client. Although it is clear that in such cases no one reads it. But nevertheless, the regulator’s requirements oblige us to this,” Kotlyarenko explained.

According to him, in addition to the profit and loss report, the Deputy Prime Minister also receives a “portfolio transcript.” When asked whether the official “knows about upcoming transactions” and can influence investment decisions, Kotlyarenko said: “Do you mean that a person holding such a position knows about upcoming important government decisions and shares inside information? There is no such". He added that the investment strategy with Shuvalov was chosen in such a way that it “absolutely eliminates a conflict of interest.”

Kotlyarenko currently manages 30 billion rubles, he said. When asked if all this money was the money of the Deputy Prime Minister, the asset manager replied: “No, of course, Igor Ivanovich and his family are not our only clients.” The number of Kotlyarenko’s clients, according to him, is “dozens” of people.

Kotlyarenko also emphasized that he and Shuvalov did not study, but he took him to work. “It was in 1995, I was in my third year. And he graduated already in 1992 or 1991. We have an age difference of almost 10 years,” noted the asset manager.

Speaking about the publication of the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Alexei Navalny, Kotlyarenko emphasized that, as it seems to him, “some Internet authors experience personal human hostility and envy” towards some of his clients.

Navalny announced the acquisition of apartments in a high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment on July 4. He noted that we are talking about ten apartments purchased by Kotlyarenko, whom he called a long-time business partner of the Deputy Prime Minister. In 2014, the asset manager bought five apartments, in 2015 - four, and in May 2016 - one more, the oppositionist wrote.

As RBC reported with reference to data from the Unified State Register of Companies, Kotlyarenko owns 11 apartments in this building, and he was the owner of two more apartments in previous years. All apartments are located on the 14th floor and adjacent to each other. According to Navalny's calculations, the total area of ​​the apartments is more than 700 square meters. m, and the total cost is 600 million rubles. According to the oppositionist, Kotlyarenko bought apartments for the Deputy Prime Minister “and with Shuvalov’s money.”

“We do not comment on a specific case, but in general practice, real estate can be acquired by managers as part of an investment strategy for asset management,” a representative of Sergei Kotlyarenko responded to RBC then.

The representative of the Deputy Prime Minister limited himself to commenting that the assets of the Deputy Prime Minister and his family are in trust. “All information about the funds and property of the First Deputy Prime Minister and his family is openly declared and presented in the prescribed manner by the Russian tax and supervisory authorities,” he said.

“Today we were shown apartments of 20 m2, it seems funny, but people buy such housing...”

This quote from Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov, which he said while inspecting a 20-meter apartment in Kazan, instantly spread across the Internet and acquired the status of a fashionable meme.

Everyone is already pretty tired of the meme, but today we have a wonderful reason to return to it. Look, so to speak, from a new angle.

Everyone probably thought, “in the end, the officials have become brutish in their palaces and state dachas and are laughing at ordinary apartments.” That's exactly how it is. The Deputy Prime Minister responsible for the economy was amused by the fact that it is possible to live on 20 m2. And even take out a mortgage to buy such an apartment. It’s funny and unimaginable to him at the same time.

So what's so funny? There are funny things in the news, yes, someone lives in the forest, eats bark and roots - funny, people probably do that. And from family cowards the Russians do fancy T-shirts. A girl draws with her grandfather's ashes, and Ivanovo children made an image of Russia from garbage. And here is a dwarf with a beard at the circus! Haha. But what’s wrong with apartments in Kazan?

And now I’ll tell you why Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov was so amused.

We at FBK have been following Shuvalov for a long time, he is one of our longest-standing heroes. A bunch of materials have accumulated over several years, and among them, the answer to why Shuvalov has no strength, how fun it is, was very successfully found.

Here is a house that needs no introduction. Stalin's skyscraper on Kotelnicheskaya embankment. One of the most grandiose residential buildings in Moscow - five-meter ceilings in the entrance, marble, panoramic views of the Kremlin, rich history.

Stalin's skyscraper on Kotelnicheskaya embankment

More than a year ago, we at FBK began receiving messages and letters from residents. “Someone important is buying apartments!” “Motorcades and the Federal Protective Service are approaching the house,” “The construction of the century has begun, all for the sake of some official.”

Well, we looked at all the large apartments in the house, which in our opinion are suitable for bureaucratic scale, we looked - there was nothing. All recent transactions are made by anyone, but not by any official. And the messages kept coming and going. At some point, we decided to do something radical and check all the apartments in the building. And there are 700 of them, just for a minute.

And this is what we found. There really was a powerful landlord in the house. A certain gentleman purchased the central apartment in the main tower in 2014, and then month after month began to literally sweep away the neighboring apartments one after another.

In 2014 I bought 5 apartments. In 2015, he became the owner of four more. Just recently, in May 2016, I bought another one. Total - 10 in two years.

The most important: all apartments are located on the same (14th) floor and adjacent to each other.

Windows of adjacent apartments on the 14th floor

Apartments in such a building, you understand, are not a cheap pleasure. On the websites there are offers in the region of 45 million for one apartment of 60 m2, standard for a house. But there are also much more expensive ones.

This means what the mysterious buyer is doing - very expensive . We need a billionaire here.

The buyer's name is Sergey Pavlovich Kotlyarenko. Let's take a look at this rich man and spender.

Kotlyarenko S.P. - nominal owner of 10 apartments in a high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya embankment

Do you recognize? And we don't.

Kotlyarenko is not an oligarch or an oil tycoon. He is not a governor, not a Rockefeller son, or a Hollywood superstar. He's a lawyer.

Kotlyarenko worked with the Federal Property Management Agency, the Government Office and the Presidential Administration

Sorry, but I want you to take another look at the plan of Shuvalov’s Tsar’s Apartment. It's incredibly simple. With the money spent only on buying the Kotelnicheskaya high-rise (without repairs, finishing, etc.), it would be possible to buy 600 (!!!) twenty-meter apartments, which Shuvalov laughed at so much in Kazan.
And that's life official and his purchases.

Purchases began immediately after the start of the conflict with Ukraine and sanctions. They continued actively against the backdrop of the economic crisis. Real incomes are falling, food prices are rising, there is nothing to index pensions, and one of the government leaders is buying up luxury real estate by the floor.

It means that we are in a frenzy of patriotism, St. George ribbons and “must rally around the leader, the party and the government,” while they themselves take the goldfish out of this troubled water.

The population, according to Shuvalov, is ready to eat less and use electricity less often in order to support the Kremlin. And what did he refuse? What price is paid for war and crisis? Risking his life, sliding on the marble floor of a new apartment?

Once again, distribution is welcome. And it’s very easy to support FBK.

At the beginning of the week, FBK Alexei Navalny began to accuse First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov of owning a “Tsar Apartment.” The high-ranking official is credited with living space in a high-rise building on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment worth about 600 million rubles. Whether this property actually belongs to Shuvalov and how other people’s property is managed, the owner of the KSP Capital Asset Management company, Sergei Kotlyarenko, told the RNS agency. In his opinion, “it’s difficult to call something an investigation” if it is based on facts reflected in the declaration and other official sources like the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. Lenta.ru publishes a shortened version of the interview with the manager.

RNS: How did your wealth management business start?

Kotlyarenko: I am a professional lawyer. My first business after leaving government service in 2004 was a law firm. And in 2012, we realized that with some clients we develop relationships that go beyond purely legal services. And we moved on to managing their assets by purchasing the existing management company, which after the transaction was renamed KSP Capital Asset Management. She had licenses to work with securities, non-state pension funds and mutual funds.

Gradually I became very interested in this work. In 2014, we transformed the law firm into a law office. The bureau is established by lawyers, but I did not receive legal status. So now there are actually two firms: KSP Capital Asset Management, where I am the only shareholder, and the law office KSP Legal, where I head the expert council. I am practically not involved in legal practice now; rather, my work in the office is supervision. But in spirit I am with them, probably for life.

How much assets do you currently have under management?

Now it’s about 30 billion rubles, but we expect significant growth as we are actively developing retail technologies.

Is this all Igor Shuvalov's money?

No, of course, Igor Ivanovich and his family are not our only clients.

How is Igor Shuvalov’s asset management organized? Have you implemented the “blind trust” principle?

Yes, in his case the work was organized blindly.

How is the management model built in this case?

“Blind trust” is a common expression, since in Russia now a blind trust is legally impossible. This is an American construction, which - externally and essentially - implies the complete elimination of the owner from the management process and even from information. In Russia, at the level of trust management, this does not happen legally. Another thing is that in fact our client can adhere to the rules of a “blind trust”. But according to Russian law, we are obliged to transfer reports to the client. Although, it is clear that in such cases no one reads it. But nevertheless, the regulator’s requirements oblige us to this. Inspections are carried out regularly, and regulation is constantly becoming stricter.

Does Shuvalov know about upcoming transactions and can influence investment decisions?

Do you mean that a person holding such a position knows about upcoming important government decisions and shares inside information? There is no such. You can believe it or not, but there is no such thing. Moreover, an investment strategy has been chosen with Shuvalov, which absolutely excludes a conflict of interest. In these segments it is unlikely that you can somehow influence with “secret” knowledge and, especially, with “resource”.

Are there other officials or public figures among your clients?

I can't comment. Even if there is, as a professional I have no right to say this.

In your opinion, where did the topic of Shuvalov’s asset management come from on the Internet?

You know... I wouldn't call myself a specialist in this particular industry...

In asset management???

Of course not. In PR and politics. After all, the information that appears on the Internet or in some media certainly contains factual inaccuracies. Many materials published online are clearly unprofessional in legal terms.

For example, in England legislation was passed obliging all offshore companies to disclose information about themselves. The next day they wrote online: “Today the First Deputy Prime Minister will hold a meeting with his lawyers, and they will think about how they can now hide...”. Although several months ago the Russian company Sova Real Estate publicly became the owner of a British apartment. What was written is stupidity, one excludes the other. What does it mean to hide if you yourself know perfectly well that it belongs to a Russian business entity? Anyone can go online and see everything. This is the paradox. This is called juggling facts. It is difficult to imagine how something can be called an investigation if it is all written in a person’s declaration and is available in official sources such as the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.

In general, if we talk about some recent publications, it seems to me that some Internet authors experience personal human hostility and envy towards some of my clients.

That is, according to the facts, not everything is correct?

For example, if we talk about Shuvalov, then we are not classmates.

You didn’t study with Shuvalov, but he hired you, and what year was that?

It was in 1995, I was in my third year. And he graduated already in 1992 or 1991. We have an age difference of almost 10 years.

Did you work together and did it leave an imprint on your client base?

Of course, yes, and thank God. But as? Should I have advertised in the newspaper? This is not how this business works. In general, in addition to Igor Ivanovich, Alexander Leonidovich Mamut interviewed me for the job. In fact, the two of them sat in the meeting room at the first meeting, and I was a third-year student.

For what purpose were apartments on Kotelnicheskaya bought?

The idea was to make a unique object. What to do with it next is the second question. If a quality buyer suddenly appears, you need to sell. Obviously, if the apartments are combined, the property will be sold at a significant premium. This is an investment. But when we started buying, we didn’t know whether we would be able to assemble these apartments or not. I acquired all this for myself, keeping in mind that if everything “grows together”, then I will sell it all.

In the interests of the trustee?

Yes. But provided that the idea itself is fully realized.

Is this an investment?

Yes, sure.

Should this object ultimately be reflected in Shuvalov's declaration?

Only if he buys it or starts using it.

Could the apartment on Kotelnicheskaya become the property of the Shuvalov family?

Maybe. If we complete everything successfully, we will annex it and receive the consent of the residents. Or maybe we’ll decide to sell the property. But factual inaccuracies should be avoided. Some now claim that Shuvalov actually uses this object and, therefore, he should have indicated it. But he doesn’t actually use it and no one uses the apartments at the moment. To claim that Shuvalov or his family are using this property is obvious nonsense.

Have you managed Shuvalov’s assets since 2012?

Deoffshorization just began in 2013. Amendments were passed prohibiting officials from having foreign financial assets, and all of Shuvalov's property and financial assets were transferred to Russia. No one may believe this now, but at some point I came to him and suggested - since we are now going to deoffshorize, transfer the assets to us, I have a management company, I can handle everything. And Shuvalov and his wife at that moment had part of their money in different management companies.

How does asset management work at KSP Capital?

KSP Capital has three main areas of activity. The first is the management of non-state pension funds. The second is classic trust management of private clients' money. And thirdly, these are closed mutual funds.

What are you investing in?

If the client wants a conservative strategy, then recently this has been investing mainly in Eurobonds of the largest Russian companies. This is the most popular alternative to deposits, as there is instability in the stock market, although many people believe in it. We also invest in stocks, but not much. After all, we are engaged in management in the classical conservative sense.

Did you see any nervous breakdowns among your clients when the Panama Papers was published, when Russia began to sign the BEPS agreement? From 2018, there will be an automatic exchange of tax information. How do clients feel?

I didn’t see any breakdowns. Of course, someone does not believe in the system and believes that he can accept the risk and will violate it. And some people think that you just need to accept this reality, become transparent and that’s it. If you are not engaged in illegal activities, then automatic exchange of information will not harm you.

Is it just that in Russia the word “offshore” is obviously negative?

The majority - 99% - of the Panamanian case are people who, in fact, are not ashamed of this. The majority, it seems to me, do not see a problem with this, although they prefer (by their own free will, in any case) not to post their documents on Facebook.

Don’t clients complain about “tightening the screws”?

There is no such thing as anyone going crazy because everything has become transparent. Anyone who has decided in principle to leave, this legislation does not apply to him. Please become a tax non-resident, if you decide to leave your homeland, there is no need to show or tell you anything here. You will do this in other countries. But if the asset is located in Russia, then it doesn’t matter how it’s all formalized. Roughly speaking, if a brick factory is located here, then you will be seen at the Unified State Register of Legal Entities level. What kind of chain of offshore companies there is next will not worry anyone, it will simply lengthen the procedure, but will not save us globally.

Has business become more law-abiding amid the deoffshorization campaign?

Forced. Often not even out of consciousness, but because it is simply more profitable. Business always thinks rationally, because now it is simply more profitable to comply with the law than not to comply with it. Plus - the inevitability of punishment. We know that a person is forced to obey the law not by the severity of punishment, but by its inevitability.

As Vedomosti found out, the company of the First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and his wife owned more than 10,000 sq. m of office space in the Moscow Hotel. Before them, the owner was an offshore company, possibly associated with Suleiman Kerimov, and now the owner is the manager of the Shuvalovs.

It started with the fact that the Federal Antimonopoly Service announced on Wednesday: it allows KSP Capital Asset Management LLC to buy 100% of Delovoy Tsentr LLC. Vedomosti's attention was drawn to the address at which Delovoy Tsentr is registered - Okhotny Ryad, 2; The multifunctional center “Moscow Hotel” is located here.

According to the Unified State Register of Enterprises, Delovoy Tsentr owns 10,257 sq. m on floors from 5th to 10th (not counting parking spaces). On the Moscow website it is indicated that there are offices here, the area of ​​which is even slightly larger - 11,100 sq. m. “Given the unique location of the property,” Elena Denisova, director of the office premises department at CBRE, estimates 1 sq. m. m at $10,000-12,000. That is, “Business Center” costs at least $100 million.

According to SPARK, in August last year, Open Assets LLC became the owner of the Business Center, which, in turn, belongs to First Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov and his wife Olga (they each have 49%). How did the Shuvalovs end up owning offices near the Kremlin?

Who is the buyer

Who is the seller

Kerimov is one of the owners of the Dekmos company, which belongs to the Moscow Hotel(his partners in the project are Arkady Rotenberg and Mikail Shishkhanov). The decision to sell the Business Center was made by Dekmos, Tatyana Bashmakova, the former general director of Nafta Co. (manages Kerimov’s assets), told Vedomosti.

Manager Shuvalov

Last year, the Shuvalovs decided to transfer assets to Russia. “When Shuvalov and his wife realized that a federal law would be adopted banning civil servants from having certain assets abroad,” says press secretary of the First Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Machevsky, “they issued an order to lawyers to transfer all financial assets to those permitted by law of the Russian Federation assets. They issued a general power of attorney to establish a legal entity in Russia necessary for such a transfer. Under this power of attorney, our lawyers created two legal entities - “Open Assets” and “Sova Real Estate”. They repeated the same structure that the Shuvalovs had abroad. The first structure is something like an investment fund that owns assets. The second is all family real estate.” According to SPARK, Shuvalov and his wife each have 49% in both companies.

Both companies are managed by Kotlyarenko. He emphasizes that the companies were initially created on the basis of trust management and the register reflects that they are managed by his “KSP Capital”. “Shuvalov is far from the only client of my group of companies. The management company has about ten significant clients, while the law firm has significantly more. According to the trust management agreement, Shuvalov and his wife cannot interfere with operational management and have no idea what kind of securities were purchased with their funds. In addition, their funds are not invested in enterprises that may be somehow connected with its administrative resource, but only in those assets that exclude the possibility of influence,” says Kotlyarenko.

How legal is this?

“In Russia, it is impossible to establish a legal entity without signing the constituent documents,” explains Machevsky. “Therefore, the only thing the Shuvalovs did was sign documents on the creation of legal entities. But in the statutory documents of these legal entities, from the first day it was written that they act according to the trust management procedure and the founders can return control to themselves only according to a certain procedure and only if this complies with the law. Thus, from the moment of the establishment of these legal entities, the Shuvalovs did not have the right to manage and dispose of these assets. This was done by KSP Capital. According to Machevsky, the Shuvalovs can receive information about the results of the work of Open Assets, which are created to earn profits, once a year, in December, and, accordingly, make a decision on the distribution of dividends. “Sova Real Estate” is not aimed at making a profit, so the regime there is more liberal.

Kotlyarenko also believes that everything is legal: “The Constitutional Court does not consider the activities of shareholders to be entrepreneurial. A prohibition for a civil servant to carry out entrepreneurial activities does not mean a prohibition for him to establish business companies, subject to the immediate transfer of shares in such a company to trust management.”

Lawyers' opinions on this matter are divided.

Civil servants cannot be founders of a commercial company, according to lawyer Henry Reznik and Khrenov and Partners lawyer Dmitry Lobachev. “As far as I understand today’s anti-corruption concept, by registering a commercial company, an official becomes a participant, this leaves an imprint of interest on him,” believes Paragon Advice Group partner Alexander Zakharov.

Separately, the issue of creating legal entities by civil servants is not spelled out in the legislation, argues Andrey Porfiryev, partner at Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasyev and Partners. On the one hand, a civil servant is allowed to engage only in scientific, creative and educational activities if they are paid, but on the other hand, the fact of establishment is an “unpaid activity.” Another problem: in Article 10 of the Anti-Corruption Law there is a direct instruction for civil servants to transfer assets into trust management, and in Article 12.3 of the same law - to transfer them only in the event of a conflict of interest or the threat thereof. According to Porfiryev, if the trust agreement was signed immediately after the registration of the enterprise, then there is no violation.