The war for the Chubais Palace. Continuation of a story. Chubais complained about blackmail of a former employee

Anatoly Chubais “broke up” with businessman Ilya Suchkov and a group of comrades working for him.

Businessman Ilya Suchkov, a former confidant of Anatoly Chubais, was arrested according to the order of the Tverskoy Court of Moscow. The reason for the arrest is the accusation brought by the head of Rusnano for extortion and slander, and, possibly, “fraud... resulting in the deprivation of a citizen’s right to residential premises.” Anatoly Chubais promised to take action against the former manager who had lost his trust and was causing more and more trouble back in the spring.

“I hate legal squabbles, but in the end I decided to file a statement with the police to initiate a criminal case against Ilya Suchkov and a group of comrades working for him... for extortion and slander,” he told readers of his Facebook page in March . Judicial delays took about two months: as Interfax clarifies, the order to arrest Suchkov was issued on June 29 (and, according to some sources, he was detained two days earlier). Detention was chosen as a preventive measure for the accused businessman. In accordance with the chosen preventive measure, he will remain in a pre-trial detention center until the end of the investigation. The case materials are examined in one police department of the Moscow region - at the place where the crime was committed.

Ilya Suchkov was charged under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale, or resulting in the deprivation of a citizen’s right to residential premises). It's about, in all likelihood, about the problematic estate in Peredelkino, which, as the media reported, was built for Anatoly Chubais, but became part of complicated property and legal relations.

The property, which is valued at approximately $40 million, was registered in the name of Ilya Suchkov (who served as head of Anatoly Chubais’s “family office” for several years). The house was built by the Swiss company SFO Concept AG - originally owned by Chubais, but after the ban on Russian officials from owning foreign assets in 2012, it was registered in the name of Suchkov. According to Anatoly Chubais, the company was sold so that the new owner would start “organizing the construction of a house and attracting financing.” It was assumed that upon completion of construction, the head of Rusnano and his wife, screenwriter Avdotya Smirnova, would live in the estate. But something went wrong...

When in September last year the Arbitration Court Bryansk region according to the claim of Crizna Holdings ltd. arrested the property of SFO Concept AG (and Anatoly Chubais stated that “the company violated a number of commercial agreements regarding raised financing”), and the land plot in Peredelkino, and the estate built on it.

The troubles didn't end there. As Anatoly Chubais later said, he became the object of blackmail from a certain “wonderful company” (presumably Ilya Suchkov, as well as “a group of comrades of Chechen nationality working for him”). First, they demanded to buy the Peredelkino house at an inflated price, then “they began to send secretly recorded recordings of business negotiations, with the threat of their publication,” the head of Rusnano shared the details in the spring. Today he is more stingy with his comments.

“I have only one clarification: Suchkov was never my partner, he was a hired manager,” was Anatoly Chubais’s reaction to the news of Ilya Suchkov’s arrest. Ilya Suchkov has worked as the manager of SFO Concept since 2010. It is worth clarifying, however, that this is not the only thing that connects him with Anatoly Chubais. The businessman whom the head of Rusnano accused of blackmail is the son of Vasily Suchkov, who worked with Anatoly Chubais at the State Property Agency, and the brother of Igor Suchkov, who worked as an adviser to Chubais for 17 years. Comments by Ilya Suchkov on this moment No. Previously, he stated that he had no debts to Anatoly Chubais, and the price of 36.5 million dollars at which it was proposed to purchase the house was confirmed by an independent appraisal commission.

The mansion of the head of Rusnano was taken over by the Zits-chairman

The rich have their own quirks. Roman Abramovich, for example, tirelessly builds yachts. So much so that each new one is longer and more luxurious than the previous one. Vladimin Potanin loves truffles worth $95 thousand per mushroom, and when asked whether a lot of money is spent on a simple party, he dismissively replies: “The gnomes will still dig it up!” . The gnomes here are hard workers of MMC Norilsk Nickel.

Hedonist Anatoly Chubais has his own “trick”. He costs himself palaces. At the same time, using Abramovich’s principle - each new one is “more than the old one.” Only, unlike the owner of Chelsea, Mr. Chubais is not comfortable showing his income openly. Just like real estate.

However, according to the media today, Anatoly Chubais owns luxury real estate with a total value of more than three billion rubles.

In particular, in the Tver region, near the village of Byltsevo, in a couple of years a luxurious estate will appear, the owner of which, judging by the documents obtained by the portal newvz.ru, will be the chairman of the board of Rusnano OJSC.

As follows from the same documents, in these same years it was built defiantly luxurious palace in the village of Peredelki Odintsovo district Moscow region (this publication is dedicated to him). Its estimated cost is about 50 million US dollars. The construction of the above-mentioned estate in the Tver region has an estimated cost of about 1.5 million dollars. That is, the total amount of these expenses for construction quirks is 51.5 million US dollars, which at the average exchange rate of the Central Bank is more than 3 billion rubles.

Considering that the actual expenses for the palaces are twice as high as Mr. Chubais’s declared income, it is not surprising that all the above-mentioned luxury official version are not listed as owned by the head of Rusnano and are registered in the name of the “Zits-chairmen”. But such games are always associated with the risk that the official “zits-chairman” may refuse the imposed prefix “zits-”. It seems that this is exactly where Anatoly Chubais got burned.

According to Russian Forbes, across the road from the famous dacha of Boris Pasternak in the village of writers Peredelkino there was a field along which the poet loved to walk. This “Pasternak” field is now built up with spacious country residences(see map). As it turned out, the estate on the site closest to the Pasternak Museum in the village of Peredelki was built for the head of Rusnano Anatoly Chubais and his wife, screenwriter and director Avdotya Smirnova. Construction began shortly after the wedding.

The huge house is completely finished, but empty. It, the site and other buildings have been seized. The owner of the property is the Swiss company SFO Concept AG, headed by young financier Ilya Suchkov. According to Mr. Suchkov, the main house with an area of 2656.8 square meters. m, two guest houses and other buildings, his company invested $50 million. In June and July, creditors of SFO Concept, who lent the company $36 million, filed several claims for the return of money, one of them was accepted for consideration in court. The largest creditor is the company O1 Trust Services ltd of billionaire and friend of Chubais Boris Mints, which at the beginning of 2012 issued loans to SFO Concept in the amount of $22.9 million.

What is SFO Concept? “For a long time this was Chubais’s family office, the company that managed his assets,” says a source close to one of the creditors. – After the law [prohibiting officials from owning foreign assets] was passed, Mr. Chubais sold the company to Ilya Suchkov. The company received loans from the structures of Boris Mints, because Chubais simply needed money to build a house. And Suchkov at some point realized that he was the happy owner and general director of a company that owned land and an almost completed house, and decided to play on this.”

The young financier Ilya Suchkov has a different version. “The house in the village of Peredelki was originally an investment project by SFO Concept,” he says. - It was financed 50% from the company's own funds. Anatoly Borisovich was going to buy it, but then, apparently, he changed his mind. And Boris Iosifovich [Mints] liked the house so much that he wanted it for himself and because of this he initiated all this prosecution.”

“This is complete nonsense! - a source close to Chubais is indignant. “The house was immediately built by order of Chubais to suit the needs of his family.” According to him, in addition to loans for the construction of the house, Chubais’s own funds were spent, first through the sale of property owned by him from the balance sheet of SFO Concept, and after the sale of the company, he also reported personal funds. Overall, this is significantly less than $50 million, the source insists. If creditors seize the house, Chubais can buy it, the source says, but at present, given the current situation, he considers its acquisition inappropriate.

Zits Chairman is from a respected family

The area of the house with all the buildings turned out to be one and a half times larger than Chubais’s previous country estate in Zhavoronki near Moscow (according to the tax return for 2010, it was registered in the name of his ex-wife Marina Vishnevskaya). However, Mintz's representatives say that O1 Trust Services is trying to return the money and does not intend to take possession of the house. “The situation is trivial - the owner of SFO Concept does not return the money he took for the construction of the house, and decided to use it at his own discretion,” says Mints’ eldest son Dmitry, head and chairman of the board of directors of O1 Properties.

Ilya Suchkov comes from a family well known to Chubais. His father Vasily Suchkov worked together with the current head of Rusnano back in the State Property Committee, Ilya’s older brother Igor was an adviser to Chubais for 17 years. An acquaintance of Chubais says that Igor had many ideas: from investments in a network of dental clinics to construction cottage village on the shore of the Ikshinsky reservoir. He invited his brother Ilya to manage real estate projects, who in 2010 headed SFO Concept.

According to Ilya Suchkov, the company quickly ceased to be just a family office and diversified its business: it began providing consulting services and, for a commission, helped companies that worked with securities attract clients. Suchkov recalls that he spent two days a week in Switzerland, three in Moscow, and discussed matters with Chubais once a year.

In 2013, Russian officials were banned from owning property abroad. Anatoly Chubais sold SFO Concept to Ilya Suchkov. The deal was real, not fictitious, its participants say. However, from the purchase and sale documents submitted by Suchkov it follows that Chubais did not immediately give up control of the company.

According to the terms of the agreement, Suchkov had to pay a large sum of $28 million for SFO Concept with a deferred payment, approximately the same amount the company at that time used to finance a house in the village of Peredelki. As an interim measure, Suchkov signed an agreement to terminate the purchase and sale agreement without specifying a date, which Chubais could use at almost any time. A year later, the parties entered into a new agreement to waive interim measures and complete settlements on new price$152,000, as determined in the appraiser's report (slightly less than the authorized capital of 200,000 Swiss francs). Suchkov says that he took part of the money from his parents, borrowed part and added his savings.

A source close to Chubais insists that the deadline for settlements for SFO Concept has not yet arrived, while the transaction price is significantly higher than the authorized capital and Suchkov has not yet paid this money. “The SFO Concept company belonged to me for some time,” confirmed Anatoly Chubais. - In 2013, I sold it to another person so that he could organize the construction of a house and raise financing. In the future, the house was to become my property. As far as I know, the company violated a number of commercial agreements in terms of attracted financing and, apparently, this served as a reason for filing claims against it from creditors.”

Friendship - friendship

According to Dmitry Mints, SFO Concept was late in payments on a bill of exchange for $0.9 million, which matured in 2013, but serious questions to Suchkov arose only in December 2015. “We learned that Suchkov wanted to re-register all SFO Concept real estate to himself as individual, without paying off loans,” Mints is indignant. “This means for us that he not only cannot fulfill his obligations, but is not even going to try to pay us off.”

Suchkov lays out stacks of documents in front of him in his office - loan agreements in two languages, appraisal reports. He admits that Boris Mints’ structures lent to SFO Concept. But it is clear from the agreement that the largest unsecured loan from O1 Trust Services ltd for $15.5 million is repayable only in April 2022, in addition, it was issued not for the construction of a house, but for replenishing working capital of SFO Concept AG. Another creditor, Crizna Holdings ltd, lent $7.5 million for general corporate purposes in June 2015 and is now also seeking the return of money in court. According to Suchkov, Crizna is affiliated with Mintz, although representatives of the latter deny this.

It was understood, creditors say, that all the loans would be used to build a house, which Chubais would buy, and after that the company would pay off the debts. However, they understand that selling real estate on the market will not allow Suchkov to pay off his debts: the current value of SFO Concept’s assets is lower than the value of loans, and, according to their estimates, already at the beginning of 2015 the company had no equity capital.

Creditors do not rule out concluding a settlement agreement with Suchkov, but so far the parties have not reached an understanding. Suchkov offers to buy the house from him at a price of $36.5 million, based on the report of an English appraisal company, the name of which he does not specify. Lenders believe that the current market value of the house with all the buildings and land is only $12.55 million, which is how much Knight Frank estimated it.

“Representatives of Boris Mints are forcing us to sell real estate in Peredelki at a reduced price - first they gave $7 million, then $12 million, which puts the company in danger of bankruptcy and criminal prosecution of the management of SFO Concept,” says Suchkov. “If Mints then cedes the property at this price to Chubais, this will mean assistance in legalizing income, because his official income does not allow him to purchase a property from SFO Concept at market value.” He also believes that Mints’ issuance of unsecured loans for ten years may simply be a transfer of those belonging to Chubais Money to legalize part of the income, and to check this, sent a request to the law enforcement authorities of Cyprus.

According to calculations, Chubais’s official income in 2010-2015 exceeded 2 billion rubles. He planned to pay for the house in the village of Peredelki by selling the property of the Perspective Companies closed mutual fund, established together with Mints (see inset).

“Lenders, I must admit, are stupid[...]. The degree of trust in Suchkov was high, and the credit relationship was not formalized brilliantly,” says one of the financiers involved in lending to the construction site. “We could have a stronger position in court when collecting debt if we were involved in lending to construction as a commercial, tough transaction,” says Dmitry Mints. “No one imagined that we would have to sort things out with Suchkov in court. At one time, Chubais helped Ilya a lot as a human being,” says an acquaintance of Chubais. Suchkov believes that he does not owe Chubais anything.

In the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region, Suchkov won: the court refused to consider O1 Trust’s claim against SFO and the petition to seize assets, because it considered that the lender had not proven the connection between the real estate and the credit relationship. However, the Bryansk arbitration court, which the second creditor, the Crizna company, applied to, nevertheless arrested the disputed property at the end of July. The court took into account that it could be sold without the knowledge of creditors: the plot, along with buildings, is being sold on Internet sites at prices in the region of 920-950 million rubles, although it is unknown who initiated these advertisements.

The judge also referred to an additional agreement to the loan agreement, in which the former trustee of its real estate in Russia, SFO Concept Consulting LLC, vouched for SFO Concept. The agreement was signed by the company's general director Sergei Krychenko, a former security guard of Chubais who worked as his assistant at RAO UES. It says that the guarantor is jointly and severally liable for the loan taken by SFO Concept for the construction of a house in the village of Peredelki. A separate clause provides for the consideration of controversial issues not in the London International Court of Arbitration, but in the Arbitration Court of the Bryansk Region.

“The additional agreement to the loan agreement is pure falsification,” Suchkov is indignant and shows a copy of the document. It follows from it that the purpose of the loan has changed, the choice of Bryansk arbitration is not motivated by anything, and no one even notified the borrower about the appearance of the guarantor. For Suchkov, such a turn came as a complete surprise, because, according to him, he was on friendly terms with Krychenko, although they terminated the agreement on trust management of real estate at the end of 2015.

In the appeal, Suchkov argues that his company has no arrears on the Crizna loan, so the lender has no grounds for collecting the debt. According to his version, a month before the loan expired at the end of October 2015, Crizna assigned the debt to a certain Denian Limited (BVI), also affiliated with Mintz, and she, in turn, signed a document forgiving the debt. “We initially agreed with Mints that this debt would be forgiven; we had friendly relations,” explains Suchkov.

Why Mints donated several million dollars to Chubais’s former company and whether this actually happened, other participants in the case do not say. Rusnano emphasizes that this situation is no longer directly related to Chubais, since he has withdrawn from all projects with Suchkov’s participation. “The asset ownership structure of Anatoly Chubais complies with the requirements of Russian legislation, and all income is declared,” says Andrey Trapeznikov, Deputy Chairman of the Board for External Communications of Rusnano.

Chubais recently admitted that he has a small family office, but he is not rich enough to be on the Forbes list. Like Pasternak, who was modest in everyday life, he could have complained about life’s difficulties in the words of the great writer about his house in Peredelkino: “We had to decide whether to take it [the dacha], go to monitor its completion, dodge, get money...”

Top manager of the head of Rusnano Ilya Suchkov took over the estate of the head of Rusnano in the village of Peredelka worth $40 million and with an area of 2656.8 sq.m., which was built after the boss’s wedding to a famous screenwriter and film director

Across the road from Boris Pasternak's famous dacha in the literary village of Peredelkino there was a field along which the poet loved to walk. This “Pasternak” field is now built up with spacious country residences (see map). As Forbes found out, the estate on the site closest to the Pasternak Museum in the village of Peredelki was built for the head of Rusnano Anatoly Chubais and his wife, screenwriter and director Avdotya Smirnova. Construction began shortly after the wedding.

What is SFO Concept? “For a long time this was Chubais’s family office, the company that managed his assets,” says a source close to one of the creditors. – After the release of the law [prohibiting officials from owning foreign assets. - Forbes] Mr. Chubais sold the company to Ilya Suchkov. The company received loans from the structures of Boris Mints, because Chubais simply needed money to build a house. And Suchkov at some point realized that he was the happy owner and general director of a company that owned land and an almost completed house, and decided to play on this.”

The young financier Ilya Suchkov has a different version. “The house in the village of Peredelki was originally an investment project by SFO Concept,” he says. - It was financed 50% from the company's own funds. Anatoly Borisovich was going to buy it, but then, apparently, he changed his mind. And Boris Iosifovich [Mints. -Forbes] liked the house so much that he wanted it for himself and because of this he initiated this whole prosecution.”

“This is complete nonsense! - a source close to Chubais is indignant. “The house was immediately built by order of Chubais to suit the needs of his family.” According to him, in addition to loans for the construction of the house, Chubais’s own funds were spent, first through the sale of property owned by him from the balance sheet of SFO Concept, and after the sale of the company, he also reported personal funds. Overall, this is significantly less than $50 million, Forbes’ source insists. If creditors seize the house, Chubais can buy it, the source says, but at present, given the current situation, he considers its acquisition inappropriate.

Young financier from a good family

The area of the house with all the buildings turned out to be one and a half times larger than Chubais’s previous country estate in Zhavoronki near Moscow (according to the tax return for 2010, it was registered in the name of his ex-wife Marina Vishnevskaya). However, Mintz's representatives say that O1 Trust Services is trying to return the money and does not intend to take possession of the house. “The situation is trivial - the owner of SFO Concept does not return the money he took for the construction of the house and decided to use it at his own discretion,” says Mints’ eldest son Dmitry, head and chairman of the board of directors of O1 Properties, in an interview with Forbes.

Ilya Suchkov comes from a family well known to Chubais. His father Vasily Suchkov worked together with the current head of Rusnano back in the State Property Committee, Ilya’s older brother Igor was an adviser to Chubais for 17 years. An acquaintance of Chubais says that Igor had many ideas: from investments in a network of dental clinics to the construction of a cottage village on the banks of the Ikshinsky reservoir. He invited his brother Ilya to manage real estate projects, who in 2010 headed SFO Concept.

According to the terms of the agreement, Suchkov had to pay a large sum of $28 million for SFO Concept with a deferred payment, approximately the same amount the company at that time used to finance a house in the village of Peredelki. As an interim measure, Suchkov signed an agreement to terminate the purchase and sale agreement without specifying a date, which Chubais could use at almost any time. A year later, the parties entered into a new agreement to waive interim measures and complete settlements at a new price of $152,000, determined in the appraiser's report (slightly less than the authorized capital of 200,000 Swiss francs). Suchkov says that he took part of the money from his parents, borrowed part and added his savings.

A source close to Chubais insists that the deadline for settlements for SFO Concept has not yet arrived, while the transaction price is significantly higher than the authorized capital and Suchkov has not yet paid this money. “The SFO Concept company belonged to me for some time,” Anatoly Chubais confirmed to Forbes. - In 2013, I sold it to another person so that he could organize the construction of a house and raise financing. In the future, the house was to become my property. As far as I know, the company violated a number of commercial agreements in terms of attracted financing and, apparently, this served as a reason for filing claims against it from creditors.”

"We had friendly relations"

According to Dmitry Mints, SFO Concept was late in payments on a bill of exchange for $0.9 million, which matured in 2013, but serious questions to Suchkov arose only in December 2015. “We learned that Suchkov wanted to re-register all SFO Concept real estate to himself as an individual, without paying off loans,” Mints is indignant. “This means for us that he not only cannot fulfill his obligations, but is not even going to try to pay us off.”

Boris Mints and Anatoly Chubais

“Representatives of Boris Mints are forcing us to sell real estate in Peredelki at a reduced price - first they gave $7 million, then $12 million, which puts the company in danger of bankruptcy and criminal prosecution of the management of SFO Concept,” says Suchkov. “If Mints then cedes the property at this price to Chubais, this will mean assistance in legalizing income, because his official income does not allow him to purchase a property from SFO Concept at market value.” He also believes that Mints’ issuance of unsecured loans for ten years may simply be a transfer of funds belonging to Chubais to legalize part of the income, and to check this, he sent a request to the law enforcement authorities of Cyprus.

According to Forbes calculations, Chubais’s official income in 2010-2015 exceeded 2 billion rubles. He planned to pay for the house in the village of Peredelki by selling the property of the Perspective Companies closed mutual fund, established together with Mints (see inset).

“Lenders, I must admit, are stupid […]. The degree of trust in Suchkov was high, and the credit relationship was not formalized brilliantly,” says one of the financiers involved in lending to the construction site. “We could have a stronger position in court when collecting debt if we were involved in lending to construction as a commercial, strict transaction,” says Dmitry Mints. “No one imagined that we would have to sort things out with Suchkov in court. At one time, Chubais helped Ilya a lot as a human being,” says an acquaintance of Chubais. Suchkov believes that he does not owe Chubais anything.

Chubais recently admitted in an interview with Forbes that he has a small family office, but he is not rich enough to be on the Forbes list. Like Pasternak, who was modest in everyday life, he could have complained about life’s difficulties in the words of the great writer about his house in Peredelkino: “We had to decide whether to take it [the dacha], go to monitor its completion, dodge, get money...”

Elena Zubova, Maria Abakumova

Photo: RIA Novosti/Alexander Natruskin

The head of Rusnano Management Company Anatoly Chubais announced his intention to file a statement with the police to initiate a criminal case against financier Ilya Suchkov and “a group of comrades of Chechen nationality” on charges of extortion and slander. Chubais about this posted on Facebook.

A Rusnano representative confirmed to RNS the authenticity of Chubais’ message on the social network.

“I can’t stand legal squabbles, but in the end I decided to file a statement with the police to initiate a criminal case against Ilya Suchkov and a group of comrades of Chechen nationality working for him - for extortion and slander. Ilya was once a hired manager of my company, but then I sold it to him. Lately I have been regularly becoming the target of blackmail from this wonderful company. At first, they demanded that I buy a house at an inadequate price, and when I categorically refused, they began to send me secretly recorded recordings of business negotiations, with the threat of their publication.

Now a certain Oleg Lurie, who, by the way, once received and served four years for extortion and fraud, is publishing another “exposure” against me - also with the history of this ill-fated house and a big prelude, in which many facts from open sources are mixed, obviously supplemented by materials from Ilya Suchkov. Some of them took place, some are complete nonsense, but to some this mixture may seem convincing. It’s unlikely that it will be possible to scare or even “upset” me with blackmail, extortion or another check, since my income has been checked many times, and for many years it has been public,” Chubais wrote.

Previously, Chubais announced that he had no obligation to buy the house on Rublyovka from the Concept company, which was sold to it in 2013 to CEO Ilya Suchkov, Chubais’s representative Alexey Firsov told RNS.

As a representative of Chubais explained, in 2010, three years before the sale of Concept AG, the company raised a loan for the construction of a private house from the structures of Boris Mints. Chubais planned to repay the loan later through transactions on the securities market and the growth in the value of the assets of the Prospective Companies fund, jointly with Mintz.

“By the time construction of the house was completed, Suchkov presented for repayment an amount that significantly exceeded the earlier agreements and the loan amount. He motivated this by the fact that he had to attract additional funds, but this issue was not agreed upon with Chubais. Under these conditions, Chubais refused to purchase the house. He has no legal obligation to Concept AG to buy it out. It does not affect Concept AG’s relations with its creditors,” Firsov said.

Then Firsov noted that Chubais “does not rule out buying out the house if a fair price is returned.”

According to Chubais' representative, investments in the Prospective Companies fund were made in foreign currency. In 2015, after a significant increase in the dollar exchange rate, the mutual fund was closed, Chubais received a significant income, allowing him, in principle, to purchase expensive real estate.