THE FORMER SHAREHOLDER OF OTKRITIE BANK HAS OFFICIALLY BECOME BANKRUPT

The Moscow Arbitration Court has decided on the insolvency of the Otkritie Holding company. The organization, which in the past was the main beneficiary of Otkritie Bank, has moved to the stage of bankruptcy proceedings with debts in the amount of 600 billion rubles. The competition is scheduled until January 23, 2023. Maria Bulatova remains the manager at this stage.

The surveillance procedure initiated by the firm on March 5, 2020, started in November 2021. The initiator of the insolvency was Otkritie Holding itself. At the time of the appeal, the declared debt was about 569 billion rubles.

The first attempt to go under surveillance in the fall of 2020 failed due to procedural violations. The organization was required by law to publish a notice of the upcoming filing of a lawsuit 15 days in advance, but did so only on February 19.

The first among the applicants was the Trust Bank. He also filed for insolvency. But the bank's claim was left without consideration (by the verdict of October 7, 2020). Attempts to review the case on appeal, cassation and in the Supreme Court were unsuccessful. The total debt to the Trust Bank is about 450 billion rubles. This includes the bonds of the holding itself and loans that have not been returned to the Trust.

At the last court session, VTB Bank made an attempt to postpone the hearing. The representative of the organization insisted that the creditors met only on July 19 and the bank did not have time to get acquainted with the minutes of the meeting. However, given that VTB announced its entry into the process only at the end of April 2021, and all the other (6 out of 7) participants were present at the creditors' meeting, the court refused the request to postpone the hearing.

According to experts, the basic asset of the organization at the moment is the firm AGD (formerly called "Archangelskgeoldobycha"). The organization is a subsurface user of the diamond tube, which Lukoil is developing. In 2017, the company's assets became the property of OPI (Otkritie Industrial Investments) at a price of $1.45 billion. The legality of this transaction is now disputed by the FAS.

Among the founders of the holding, a large share (17.8%) belonged to the general director Pavel Fedoseev and Alexander Bukharin (about 20%). The owners of the organization are also the owners of Lukoil, Vadim Belyaev (founder of the holding), VTB Bank, Ruben Aganbegyan. Former managers of Otkritie Bank also owned 10% through the Cyprus firm Velinio Holdings.