Who is the father and mother of Platon Lebedev. Businessmen are asking for help from the OCG. Litigation with political overtones

In this photo, to the right of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, you see his accomplice, Platon Lebedev, one of the leaders of Menatep.

Yesterday Lebedev's granddaughter Diana died in Switzerland. The car in which the 19-year-old girl and her 23-year-old friend were traveling fell off the bridge into the river.

Diana was undeniably beautiful. I am very sorry for the girl: young, charming, rich. It would seem to live and be happy. Everything is given - money, health, youth and beauty.

But a terrible absurdity happened, which ruthlessly and completely unexpectedly ended the life of a happy girl.

Photo: Social networks, InformVest

Actually, nothing unexpected. The law of the boomerang absolutely expectedly took effect and once again proved its inevitability.

You can steal money. You can kill, steal, rob, but no one has canceled the boomerang law yet, and this law always hits the sickest.

In the case of Lebedev, the patient is a beautiful young granddaughter whose life was taken for the sins of her grandfather.

Grandfather, whom I do not feel sorry for at all. The girl is very. I cannot sympathize with Lebedev, even if he faced such a loss.

Both Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are real bandits out of 90 who survived.

Platon Lebedev and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, 1998 Photo: lenta.ru

Alive, so that you understand, there were not sheep at all, but the most cruel ones. Sheep were shot. Survived - ruthless wolves.

And what happened to Diana is an answer to Lebedev for his sins. For the innocent old women of "Menatep", including. They, like his granddaughter, were also not guilty of anything, but they also did not live out the time allotted to them.

It's better to live like middle class than to climb to the top on a ladder of bones. It is better to spread less butter on bread than to go against your conscience.

Don't do shit, my dears. Be honest - to yourself first. Always fight for the truth. You will always be rewarded with justice.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:10).

Do you believe in the law of karma? Ever felt like you were paying for the sins of your ancestors? Doing certain actions, do you admit the idea that the most unsightly of them can hit your descendants hard?

Last Friday, the Basmanny Court of Moscow sentenced Tatevos Surinov, former director general of the Russian Football Premier League and head of the Russian Aviation Consortium Financial and Industrial Group, and Ibragim Suleymanov, his deputy for the financial and industrial group, to long terms of imprisonment. The court found them guilty, including of fraud and money laundering.

The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case against Tatevos Surinov in the fall of 2004, when he was the general director of the Russian Football Premier League. But he, along with business partner Ibragim Suleimanov, was arrested and charged with cases not related to football. In 2002, for $4.5 million, they acquired GPA Komplekt CJSC for a shell company. automated system air traffic control company of the French company Thomson, installed at the international airport of Kazan. The nominal owner of the equipment, the Suvar company, owed $4.5 million for customs clearance of the equipment, and the government of Tatarstan decided to sell it at an auction. One of the terms of the sale was that the buyer did not have to raise the system's operating fees. Messrs. Surinov and Suleimanov bypassed this condition, as the investigation established, first by legalizing the property by buying it on behalf of Rosaviaconsortium from CJSC GPA Komplekt for counterfeit bills, and then demanded that RSE Tataeronavigatsia, which operated the equipment, transfer money to Rosaviaconsortium .

Already during the investigation of the episode with the airport equipment, the investigators found out that in July 2002, the Rosaviaconsortium, headed by Messrs. Surinov and Suleymanov, illegally terminated the sublease agreement with the Rodeo-Avto car dealership, which rented space at the airport terminal in Moscow from the Rosaviaconsortium. The owner of the car dealership Andrei Arzyaev refused to leave the premises, and then the leaders of the Rosaviaconsortium, as the investigation established, sent their people to him, who threatened him to terminate the contract. The investigation also found out that Mr. Suleymanov illegally owned a Stechkin pistol. Last summer, the case of Messrs. Surinov and Suleymanov was taken to court.

The announcement of the verdict began last Monday and continued intermittently for four days. Most of this time, the defendants Surinov and Suleimanov talked carelessly to each other, not paying much attention to what was happening. The state prosecutor demanded twelve and twelve and a half years of imprisonment for them, and the judge Vera Pilganova, having started the announcement of the verdict, immediately announced that she found the defendants guilty on almost all counts. The court recognized the transaction with the navigation equipment of the Kazan airport initially illegal, since "links unified system air traffic control cannot be transferred to private hands. The episode related to the termination of the lease agreement was qualified by the court as arbitrariness. And Mr. Suleymanov was also charged with illegal possession of weapons.

Judge Vera Pilganova found Tatevos Surinov, head of the Rosaviaconsortium, guilty of all charges and sentenced him to ten years and six months in a strict regime colony. His accomplice Ibragim Suleimanov will also serve his sentence in a strict regime colony, but for two months more. The defendants and their defenders listened to the verdict in deathly silence. As we approached the operative part, Vera Pilganova, the chairwoman, lost her voice completely, and she was forced to go into a whisper. The relatives of the defendants who were present at the trial leaned forward to hear the judge, and formed a semicircle at the pulpit. When the convicts were taken out into the corridor, Tatevos Surinov shouted: "Thank you for not giving me 20 years!" "And they didn't shoot!" Ibrahim Suleimanov added. Lawyers for the defendants said they would definitely appeal the verdict.

Alexey Ъ-Sokovnin

The Prosecutor General's Office resumed a previously closed criminal case on embezzlement on an especially large scale. Entrepreneur Andrei Andreev claims that about 100 companies were stolen from him through extortion and threats. Now the owners of these companies are the structures of Russian Aluminum, headed by Oleg Deripaska. Right now, the Prosecutor General's Office decided that at one time "the investigation was conducted biased." The new case once again shows that the Yukos case is not an unfortunate incident, but a campaign to remove the “skeletons from the closets” of those representatives of big business who either declared political ambitions or build their business on a political resource.

“The signal has gone that it is possible to settle scores with each other”

The actions of the Prosecutor General's Office against large entrepreneurs began to acquire the character of a system. Now go literally alphabetically. A. has practically gone out of business, with B. everything is clear, and now it’s D’s turn.

Only on Friday, Vladimir Putin announced that he was against "arm-twisting" for economic crimes, and on Monday evening it became known about a new high-profile initiative of the prosecutor's office. Oleg Deripaska, CEO of Russian Aluminum, chairman of the board of directors of Basic Element, and son-in-law of Yeltsin's daughter, turned out to be the next object of persecution after Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

As in the case with Yukos, the Prosecutor General's Office opened a case on charges not personally of the head of the company, but of his entourage. “Even on Friday, everyone expected that there would be some kind of signal from above to stop the attack on Yukos,” Andrey Ryabov, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment, told GAZETA, “but it did not follow. And the reopening of the case against Deripaska is a chain reaction.” The expert does not believe that Putin personally intervened in the case of Deripaska. On the contrary, he remained aloof, and that was enough. “Until recently, there was a system of mutual recognition of interests, in which the president played the role of arbiter. On Friday, the president did not play this role. Consequently, the signal went that it is possible to settle scores with each other. Moreover, among the security forces there are people who have accumulated questions to Deripaska, ”Ryabov believes.

The investigator withdrew himself and ended up in a psychiatric hospital

As GAZETA was informed by the CSO of the Prosecutor General's Office, the decision to resume the investigation in the so-called Andrey Andreev case “was taken due to the fact that the investigation was conducted biased, the instructions of the supervising prosecutor on the case were not followed. Inconsistencies in the testimonies of individuals have not been eliminated. It has not been clarified with whose money the assets of Ingosstrakh, CJSC Ingosstrakh-Russia, Avtobank and OJSC NOSTA were acquired. A number of examinations have not been completed.

Meanwhile, according to GAZETA, the investigator of the Investigative Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Major of Justice Viktor Tsymbal, who was involved in this case, under strange circumstances, withdrew from the investigation and ended up in a psychiatric hospital.

The scandalous story with the sale of the largest insurance company Ingosstrakh, Avtobank, the Orsk-Khalilovsky Metallurgical Plant (NOSTA), as well as a dozen other lesser-known firms, surfaced largely by accident.

On November 7, 2001, employees of the GUBOP found in Moscow in a one-room apartment on Stary Gai Street an arsenal (grenade launcher, machine guns, pistols, machine gun, explosives and cartridges), which, as it turned out later, belonged to members of the Krasnoyarsk organized criminal group. Among other things, a video cassette with a recording of a conversation between three men was also kept there. The interlocutors discussed how the business should be taken away from a certain Andreev. Moreover, it was also about the possible physical elimination of the merchant.

It was not difficult for the operatives to establish that the potential victim was 45-year-old Andrey Andreev, the owner of Ingosstrakh, Avtobank, NOSTA and dozens of other companies. How the former detective of the 11th department of the UBKhSS GUVD of Moscow became the owner of a billion-dollar fortune, the police did not begin to find out for obvious reasons. The fact is that Andreev turned out to be a good acquaintance of the infamous Alexander Orlov (former assistant to the Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Rushailo) and Nikolai Klimkin, the former head of the Moscow RUBOP.

When the operatives met with Andreev, it turned out that he had already sold his entire business, estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars, for $90 million to an alliance from “ base element"(Oleg Deripaska), Millhouse capital (a structure affiliated with Sibneft) and SOC Nafta-Moscow (member of the Federation Council Suleiman Kerimov).

According to the GUBOP, one of the intermediaries in the deal was crime boss Ibragim Suleimanov, who received a fee of $6 million for his work.

However, from conversations with Andreev, it became clear to the operatives that the entrepreneur had no claims against the new owners of his business and should apply to law enforcement is not going to - either the proceeds from the transaction suited him perfectly, or he was afraid of the bandits who forced him to sell his companies. It also turned out to be impossible to defend their interests with the help of powerful friends - they lost their former power.

Andreev identified people on videotape

Nevertheless, Andreev eventually agreed to cooperate with the investigation and wrote a statement about all his misadventures. As a result, in January 2002, the main investigation department The Moscow police department opened a criminal case on the fact of embezzlement on an especially large scale, which later turned out to be in the production of the Investigative Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.

With the help of Andreev, the detectives easily identified the people depicted on the videotape. They turned out to be members of the Krasnoyarsk organized crime group, repeatedly convicted Rodion Gamzaev (Radik), Sergey Botev (Botya) and Yaroslav Kuznetsov (Kuzya). According to the victim, it was they who, under the threat of physical elimination, forced him to leave the business.

On December 14, 2001, Sergey Botev was detained in Moscow. He had a gun and drugs with him. Gamzaev by that time managed to hide abroad. According to operational data, more than 50 million dollars were transferred to the accounts of firms controlled by the latter.

The shares of former enterprises of Andreev (more than 1 billion rubles) were seized by the investigation.

However, about a month ago, the Investigative Committee stopped the investigation and closed the case. Now they will be dealt with by the investigative department of the Prosecutor General's Office.

Dear Suleiman Abusaidovich! Sorry for reaching out. .. I read in the newspaper that the singer Shakira received $ 1 million for her performance at your party ... Could you provide financial assistance to our family ... ”. Letters of this kind come in batches to the waiting room of the richest deputy State Duma Suleiman Kerimov.

Kerimov became an LDPR deputy in late 1999 shortly after he bought the oil trading company Nafta Moskva. For the seventh year now, the deputy has been his only official position. But this does not prevent Kerimov's business from developing successfully. Nafta Moskva curtailed the oil trade and became a master of hostile takeovers, participating in many episodes of property redistribution, and then turned from a formidable predator into a peaceful private equity fund. At least, this is how people close to Kerimov present Nafta to the public.

Forty-year-old Karimov, whose fortune is estimated at $ 7.5 billion, appears on Okhotny Ryad a couple of times a month, not more often. He spends most of his time in his own office - a spacious pink mansion on Ordynka. Kerimov arrives here by noon and often stays up late. What is he doing? It cannot be said that Kerimov directly manages a particular business or determines the development strategy for his enterprises. According to people who know Kerimov (he himself does not talk to journalists on principle), he basically just communicates with people he knows and does not know him. “You can visit him for half an hour to talk about business, and eventually stay for half the night and talk about literally everything - from geopolitics to fiction", - says Mikhail Shishkhanov, Kerimov's partner in BIN-bank. Through such communication and building relationships with the right people, new business opportunities open up. Kerimov's social events - parties with pop stars, riding on his own Ice yacht, standing off the coast of Spain (in size and cost, it is only slightly inferior to Roman Abramovich's Le Grand Blue and Pelorus yachts), sponsoring cultural and sporting events - all this is part of such communication.

And the right people are, for example, the wife of the Moscow mayor, Elena Baturina, thanks to whose acquaintance Kerimov took part in the redistribution of the Moscow construction market, earning several hundred million dollars Participants in the capital's real estate market, on condition of anonymity, claim that Kerimov's arrival in the Moscow construction complex would not have taken place without the support of Baturina and First Deputy Mayor Vladimir Resin.

Or the influential deputy chairman of the board of Sberbank Alla Aleshkina - without her approval, Nafta Moskva would hardly have received an unprecedentedly large and cheap loan to buy Gazprom shares for several billion dollars. As a rule, the issuance of loans secured by shares is considered a high-risk business, and borrowers are denied this.

Other useful contacts: Rusal owner Oleg Deripaska and Russneft founder Mikhail Gutseriev. Since the late 1990s, they have acted as “bona fide purchasers” of assets that Kerimov managed to gain control over. In a word, this entrepreneur is not used to running companies - he makes money by taking advantage of the opportunities and people he meets along the way.

Suleiman (friends call him Sulik) Kerimov was born and raised in Derbent, an industrial city in southern Dagestan. As a teenager, he was both smart and strong, a rare combination. In the eighth grade, he easily solved problems in mathematics and physics for the tenth grade. At the institute, Suleiman Kerimov became a candidate for master of sports in judo.

While still a student, Suleiman married a classmate Firuza. Father-in-law, a major party functionary, helped him get a job. Good work- an economist at the Eltav electronic plant, one of largest enterprises Dagestan, which produced transistors for the defense industry and Horizon and Record TVs. Transistors were adapted to the requirements of the customer, and the young specialist calculated how much it would cost, compared the cost with competitors ... Soon, a talented economist who had an influential father-in-law became an assistant to the general director.

With the collapse of the USSR, consumers of Eltava products found themselves in different countries. In order to conduct mutual settlements between disparate enterprises, the plant and its subcontractors - suppliers of silicon from Ukraine, semiconductor plants near Moscow and the Belarusian NPO Gorizont - established the Federal Industrial Bank. The bank was registered in Moscow in 1993. Suleiman Kerimov began to represent the interests of Eltava in Fedprombank, first wandered between Dagestan and Moscow, and then rented an apartment and finally settled in the Russian capital.

The banking business in the era of hyperinflation was one of the most profitable, and, of course, Fedprom-bank was engaged not only in payments to TV assemblers. Karimov's compatriot Magomedtagir Abdulbasirov (former secretary of the Dagestan regional committee of the CPSU) in 1994 headed the Federal Food Corporation under the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia. In 1994-1996, the corporation received about $500 million from the budget for government food purchases. Fedprombank participated in the distribution of this money, but what part is unknown. “Kerimov did business with Abdulbasirov,” Saadu Magomedov, the former general director of Eltava, tells Forbes. “Gradually, electronic factories came out of the capital of Fedprom-Bank. Suleiman bought their shares. By the end of 1996, he had collected a controlling stake." Subsequently, Abdulbasirov was accused of embezzlement of budgetary funds and removed from his post. Kerimov found others the right people. One of them was Sergey Isakov, the then owner of the Orel-Avia airline (he refused to talk to Forbes about Kerimov). “[Isakov] was an LDPR activist, he also wanted to become governor instead of Yegor Stroev, but it didn’t work out,” says Vladimir Zhirinovsky, chairman of the LDPR, in an interview with Forbes. - Kerimov worked with him in the mid-1990s, and I met him through Isakov. They then worked together in aviation.”

By 1997, structures friendly to Kerimov had acquired controlling stakes in Vnukovo Airlines (at that time the second largest airline in Russia), the Murmansk Aviation Enterprise and the Transport and Clearing House (a company selling and booking tickets). legal entity Kerimov's aviation business was FPG Rosaviaconsortium, major shareholder which was Fedprombank. Kerimov's acquaintances say that the commission from the sale of air tickets brought him at least $10 million a year. Air travel was more difficult. According to the Accounts Chamber, "investment obligations during the privatization of Vnukovo Airlines were imitated by the conclusion of contracts for the supply of Tu-204 aircraft and payment by illiquid promissory notes." As noted in the bulletin of the chamber, Rosaviaconsortium not only failed to fulfill the investment program for $150 million, but also brought Vnukovo Airlines to the loss of the main part of the fleet, complete financial insolvency and a planned takeover by Siberia Airlines. The trade union leader of Vnukovo Airlines, Gennady Borisov, who was trying to fight abuses in the company, was stabbed to death in the entrance of his house in January 1999. Kerimov's partners in Rosaviaconsortium were Ibragim Suleymanov and Tatevos Surinov. Now both of them have been arrested and are under investigation on charges of illegal sale in 2002 of Kazan airport navigation equipment.

Kerimov was not affected by the story with Vnukovo. At the end of 1998, he left the capital of Vnukovo Airlines and Fedprombank, dissociating himself from his former partners. A new stage in his biography was the oil trading company Nafta Moscow.

Nafta Moskva is the successor of Soyuznefteexport, an oil trading monopoly that exported 200 million tons of oil and oil products annually during Soviet times. Soyuznefteexport had representative offices abroad, gas station networks in Finland and a port terminal in Belgium. But by the end of the 1990s, Nafta Moskva gradually lost its position - most oil companies acquired their own sales structures. Surgutneftegaz remained the only major client of Nafta, and even then thanks to the minimum commission: for oil it was 0.5%, for oil products - up to 1%. Nafta's turnover was about $2 billion, but its net proceeds did not exceed several tens of millions of dollars. After the August crisis of 1998, Nafta Moskvy’s money “hung” in several collapsed banks, and the company owed about $120 million to Surgutneftegaz alone. The management, headed by the former Deputy Minister of the Oil and Gas Industry Anatoly Kolotilin, had to put the company up for sale. Surgutneftegaz, which already owned about 14% of Nafta, refused to increase its share. LUKOIL, Russia's largest oil company, has taken a wait-and-see attitude. Other oilmen were not interested in Nafta Moskva at all.

Only Kerimov quickly agreed to the deal, one of the former employees of Nafta Moskvy tells Forbes. For about $50 million, he bought the papers of management and private shareholders (about 55% of the shares), plus he promised to quickly pay off his debt to Surgutneftegaz. It is believed that the management of Transneft helped Kerimov to carry out the deal: as an operator of export pipelines, he participated in the negotiations on the deal. The then president of Transneft Dmitry Saveliev he was even forced to make excuses at one of the press conferences: they say that his company did not acquire Nafta shares.

Subsequently, Kerimov bought out a stake in Surgutneftegaz in Nafta Moskva, and a year and a half later he increased his stake in Nafta to 100%, diluting the shares of small shareholders by issuing additional shares. Shortly after the purchase of Nafta, in December 1999, Kerimov became a State Duma deputy from the LDPR, a party known for a significant proportion of "commercial" candidates on its lists. Thanks to the connections of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Nafta Moskva made several successful deals with Iraqi oil under the Oil for Food program. But in general, the oil trading business was fading away: the commission was decreasing, the competition was growing. Surgutneftegaz began to sell its export volumes at tenders. At first, Nafta Moskva thought to strengthen its position in trading through its own production: the company owned the small oil enterprises Nafta-Ulyanovsk and Obneftegazgeologiya, but in 2001-2002 Kerimov preferred to sell them to Mikhail Gutseriev. He first headed the state-owned Slavneft, and then created the private company Russneft, which quickly bought up about 30 small oil companies throughout Russia. Then Nafta also got rid of foreign assets. The most high-profile deal was the sale of the Teboil gas station network in Finland (more than 300 gas stations, about a quarter of the country's market) to LUKOIL at the beginning of 2005. The amount of the transaction, according to LUKOIL's reports, was $160 million. In general, according to market participants, Kerimov spent about $50 million on buying Nafta Moskvy shares, and gained at least $300 million from the sale of its assets.

Such profit margins are not uncommon for Kerimov's operations, as are other companies that specialize in the aggressive buying and reselling of industrial property. As the Vedomosti newspaper wrote, the Alfa-Eco group, owned by Mikhail Fridman and partners, in its 2002 financial statements indicated incredible profitability figures for the projects it implemented. Alpha's income from the takeover and sale of the Achinsk Alumina Refinery amounted to 680%. At the Volgograd metallurgical plant "Red October" the company managed to earn 253% in 2001; the resale of shares and accounts payable of Korshunovskiy GOK provided a yield of 161%.

An example from the history of Nafta Moskvy: informed sources say that in 1999 she bought about 20% of preferred shares of Transneft for $100 million, and a year and a half later she resold them for more than $400 million. Kerimov himself did not confirm this information.

The most scandalous deal of a businessman took place five years ago. Former OBKhSS employee Andrey Andreev at that time controlled Avtobank, insurance company"Ingosstrakh", Orsk-Khalilovsky Iron and Steel Works (NOSTA, Orenburg region), fur farms in the Moscow region and a number of other enterprises. In the fall of 2001, Andreev lost all this. “My business was illegally re-registered for a number of companies that were directly controlled by Nafta Moskva, Rusal and [Roman Abramovich's company] Millhouse. The deal with them was signed by the leader of the Krasnoyarsk criminal group Radik Gamzaev and the chairman of the board of Avtobank Natalia Raevskaya, who was subjected to physical and moral pressure, threats with weapons, Andreev says in an interview with Forbes. “I didn’t sell anything to anyone and didn’t get a dime from this deal.” According to Andreev, the buyers transferred $60 million to the accounts indicated by Gamzaev, while the real value of the assets exceeded $700 million. Soon, the enterprises were sold off piece by piece to "bona fide purchasers": Avtobank - NIKoil, Ingosstrakh and NOSTA - to the structures of Oleg Deripaska (“Rusal”), fur farms - to the BIN group.

Nafta Moskva tells this story differently. “The business was not taken away from Andreev, but money was paid for it,” says a source close to Kerimov. - The price turned out to be low, because the deal was after the default: a large "hole" was found in the balance sheet of Avtobank, NOSTA was under external management, other enterprises included in the package of this transaction were also in the red.

The only thing that Andreev managed to achieve in more than two years of trials was the signing of an agreement on the settlement of relations with the end buyers of his business. In 2004, he received a minor monetary compensation in exchange for an end to litigation. It should be added to this story that since the mid-1990s, Kerimov and Andreev have been on friendly terms, often communicated. “I never could have guessed until the end of 2001 that Suleiman could be involved in such a deal,” says Andreev.

Soon after this story, Kerimov broke up with his partner Dzhabrail Shikhaliev, who signed all the documents on the deal on behalf of Nafta Moskvy (after Kerimov was elected to the State Duma, Shikhaliev was the right hand of a businessman deputy) and brought Alexander Mosionzhik, a native of Alfa- Eco". A specialist in acquisitions and investments, Mosionzhik became the CEO of Nafta Moskvy. This reflected the final change in Nafta's specialization.

A situation similar to the story with Avtobank was repeated in 2005 with the construction and industrial corporation (SPK) Razvitie, which includes Glavmosstroy and other companies, which together provide 25% of housing construction in Moscow. Vladimir Kuznetsov, general director of the SPK, said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station: “On May 16, they raided us with a search, presenting a decision to initiate a criminal case, seized documents. And on June 20, I was informed that the company had a new owner - deputy Suleiman Kerimov. He invited me and said that he owns companies that hold a controlling stake in SPK Razvitie (51%). The three organizations that collectively owned a controlling stake [were] held meetings with a very simple agenda - change of director, registration of a new seal and approval big deal on the sale of a block of shares to offshore companies.

The story of how 150 young people with baseball bats and rebar stormed the Razvitie building last summer shocked Moscow: it seemed that such forceful seizures remained in the 1990s. The attack was repulsed, but controversial situation with property rights, the resolution of which promised many months of litigation in the courts, forced the owner of SEC "Razvitie" Alexandra Voronina, in the past an official of the Moscow construction complex, to sell the business. According to market participants, Kerimov paid about $100 million for Razvitie, and a few months later he resold it to Oleg Deripaska's structures for $300 million.

In the spring of 2005, Kerimov got the huge Smolensky Passage business center inexpensively - for about $50 million. Kerimov is estimated to have made 200% of the profits by handing over the Smolensky Passage to the BIN group of the Gutseriev brothers.

Buyers have always claimed that they are acquiring assets from Kerimov's structures, and the past of these enterprises is none of their business. But it is obvious that such high-profile deals would hardly have gone smoothly without enlisting support at the political level for the deputy. “Kerimov is one of those who are ready to take actions agreed with the authorities and will never build any options against the authorities,” explains Vladimir Zhirinovsky. - This is an intelligent Caucasus. There is a crowbar Caucasus, a mafia, but with Kerimov everything is cultural, educated: he carefully builds his business - financial structures, commercial ... He is a quiet, modest, attentive person, he for a long time I didn’t stick out anywhere, I tried myself in different areas of business, I didn’t get into major battles for property, and then, when all sorts of Berezovsky and Smolensk ones collapsed, free space formed and Kerimov went uphill.

Karimov is very careful about his reputation. It is not known whether he took personally the words of Minister German Gref that "greenmailers who became billionaires on the illegal seizure of property should be in places not so remote, and not top the Forbes list," but from the general director of SEC "Razvitie" Vladimir Kuznetsov, a millionaire deputy recently secured a refutation.

In an interview " Russian newspaper Kuznetsov stated: “Suleiman Abusaidovich Kerimov is a well-known businessman and a respected person ... His involvement in the events in Granatny Lane [the storming of the office of the SEC Razvitie] is speculation, not supported by facts.” Kuznetsov categorically refused to talk to Forbes, referring to the fact that his position was set out in Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Many businessmen who dealt with Kerimov are afraid to talk about him, limiting themselves to diplomatic characteristics, that he is “a charming person, with a mathematical mindset”, “rather tough, but open”, “with a good nose for business, able to make decisions quickly” and etc.

Kerimov's business is gradually evolving. If the enterprises acquired with scandals, he attaches to either Deripaska or Gutseriev, then he keeps those bought without declaring war. There are already a lot of them, and everything is like a selection.

Firstly, this is the Polymetal company, a major gold and silver miner, formerly part of the St. Petersburg ICT group. Last fall, Kerimov bought Polymetal for $930 million, expecting that the company would be worth more than $4 billion when it enters world markets. on the London Stock Exchange) is about $2.4 billion.

Secondly, cable TV. Last year, Nafta Moskva acquired the companies Mosteleset (Moscow) and National Cable Networks (St. Petersburg and branches around the country). The merger procedure has now begun, as a result of which national operator cable television with 5.5 million subscribers. According to Nafta Moskvy, the capitalization of the combined company already exceeds $450 million and will continue to grow. This business is considered very promising: the demand for digital TV channels is increasing, and cable TV is more cheap way signal delivery than, for example, satellite dishes. In addition, in addition to the TV signal, any data can be transmitted via cable networks: telephone, Internet traffic, etc. Many are sure that Internet TV will eventually even replace conventional broadcasting.

Thirdly, this is the project of a "private city" on the Novorizhskoye Highway in the Moscow region. Here Kerimov bought and reserved 430 hectares of land - an area comparable to two Monaco. The project involves the construction of 2.7 million square meters. m of expensive private houses. The volume of investments over the next six years will amount to more than $3 billion. And although, according to rumors, this project, like Kerimov’s other real estate assets, will be resold to Oleg Deripaska, Nafta Moskva assured Forbes that they would build the city on their own. “As far as we know, Kerimov has reserved a house in this city for himself and apartments for his children. Many of his acquaintances lined up to settle in the same place, ”says Nafta Moskva.

Another sign of change was the invitation to the post of chairman of the board of directors of Nafta Moskvy, an investment banker with an international name - Allen Vine from Merrill Lynch. According to Nafta Moskvy, this appointment "reflects the group's strategy ... to develop into a leading private equity fund, an active participant in global financial markets."

Was it easy for Allen Vine to agree to work with Suleiman Kerimov? “This decision was based on a number of factors that emerged while working with him as a client of Merrill Lynch,” Vine explains. “Kerimov was scrutinized closely. According to the basic principles of work, Kerimov is close to such investors as Warren Buffett. An opportunity has arisen to work with an active, cautious investor who wants to create a fund in Russia that competes in power with the leading players in the world.”

This “power”, first of all, lies in the shares of Gazprom and Sberbank. In 2004, Nafta Moekva began to buy Gazprom shares, taking loans from Sberbank secured by these shares, which in turn were used to purchase new shares of Gazprom and Sberbank itself. Against the background of the promised liberalization of the market for the shares of the gas monopoly, Gazprom's quotes were constantly growing, it became possible to release part of the shares from collateral and take a new loan against them.

Kerimov eventually collected 4% of the shares of Gazprom and 6% of the shares of Sberbank. Why did he decide to buy shares of state monopolies in such volumes? “I believed in the president’s statements about the liberalization of Gazprom shares, invested money and was not mistaken,” explains a source close to Kerimov. - The logic is this: when petrodollars enter the country, they end up in banks, so investing in the largest bank in the country is absolutely the right move. Gazprom is the most capitalized fuel company in the country, one of the main centers of the fuel boom. Having invested in Sberbank and Gazprom, Kerimov caught the situation from two ends.

The value of Gazprom and Sberbank shares has tripled over the past two years. Now Kerimov's share in these companies is estimated at more than $9.5 billion, while the loans raised to buy them are only $3.2 billion.

Moreover, $3.2 billion is more than 5% of all loans that Sberbank issued to non-state commercial organizations. Lending money to Nafta Moscow, Sberbank exceeded the lending standards for one company, therefore, in order to continue taking loans, Kerimov had to register an understudy company - CJSC New project". The fact that Sberbank agreed to participate in the unwinding of the credit spiral that made Kerimov rich is seen by many as politically motivated.

“It is possible that he manages not only his own, but also other people's money,” says one of the Forbes interlocutors, and his opinion is shared by other sources. “Look who goes to his parties: Boris Yeltsin, Jr., Tatyana Dyachenko, Valentin Yumashev.” Does the "Russian Warren Buffett" manage not only his own money, but also the funds of other influential people? There is no reliable information on this. The official position of Nafta Moskvy is that everything the company owns is the property of Kerimov.

But it is reliably known that Kerimov became cramped in Russia. According to Nafta, the deputy-investor spends more and more time negotiating the acquisition of assets abroad. A banker from Merrill Lynch who believes in the reputation of his new client is a good help in overseas expansion. It is unlikely that he will be able to provide Kerimov with hundreds of percent per annum. But is it so important if the main fortune of this businessman has already been earned?

Ilya Khrennikov

In the sky and on the sea

The yacht Ice, owned by Suleiman Kerimov, was built at the Lürssen shipyard in Bremen, Germany. The length of this four-deck vessel is 90 meters. (The length of the largest yacht of Roman Abramovich Pelorus is 115 meters). The sinks and all seven baths in the owner's cabin and guest cabins (the yacht is designed for 16 people in total) are made of solid pieces of limestone, the interiors are trimmed with oak. The owner's bedroom extends from one side of the yacht to the other. On board - a swimming pool and a helipad. The cruising range is more than 11,000 km. According to some reports, only the decor of interiors, including painting, cost $ 25 million, and total cost yachts could be about $ 170 million. As a personal liner, Kerimov uses not an ordinary small business aviation aircraft, but a Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) 737-700, a luxuriously finished medium-haul passenger liner. In the standard commercial layout, the Boeing 737 carries more than 100 passengers, but in the BBJ modification it takes only 16 people on board, and the owner has an office, shower room and bedroom on board. The cost of such an aircraft with a “stuffing” of the cabin reaches $50 million, which is almost twice as expensive as the Bombardier Challenger, the most popular among Russian capitalists. BBJ can fly to America: the range of its non-stop flight is up to 12,000 km.

Ilya Khrennikov

"Gold" faction

Suleiman Kerimov is not the only multimillionaire in the Russian Federal Assembly. In addition to him, the “Golden Hundred” of the Russian Forbes (this year people with a fortune of $450 million or more) included 13 deputies of the State Duma and senators