City-forming enterprise of the Southern Urals may be declared bankrupt

City-forming enterprise of the Southern Urals may be declared bankrupt

City-forming enterprise of the Southern Urals may be declared bankrupt
A claim for the insolvency of Bakal Mining Administration (BMA) was filed with the arbitration of the Chelyabinsk region on February 9.  Since 2012, the organization has been a part of the RPRA Ural group of companies and managed the oldest iron ore enterprise in the region.  The amount of debt indicated in the file of arbitration cases is 6.88 million rubles.  However, which of the creditors submitted the application remains a mystery.

The claim itself disappeared from the case file in a strange way (it is not available at the moment).  ZNAK media outlet, which reported on the lawsuit filed and published a screenshot from the website of the judicial filing cabinet, reports that the lawsuit was filed by the company itself.  However, the press service of the RPRA Ural denied this information, referring to the confusion that had arisen when the creditor filed a claim.
Experts note that the company has been on the verge of bankruptcy for several years in a row, continuing business activities with billions in revenue and multimillion-dollar losses.
The fact is that BMA is a city-forming company, providing jobs for more than 800 employees.  Until 2016, the company employed more than 1,200 people.

This is not the first attempt to drive BMA to bankruptcy.  At the end of 2018, the tax authorities filed a lawsuit on the insolvency of the organization, as the company underpaid more than 600 million rubles to it.  However, by August 2019, the issue was resolved by the signing of a settlement agreement.

In September 2019, creditors began to demand bankruptcy, and lawsuits were filed with the court by a number of companies that had not received payments from BMA.  However, the matter did not reach the insolvency procedure, as the arbitration did not consider many of the claims, and even rejected some of them.

In 2021, criminal cases against the head of the company were initiated by the FSSP.  The bailiffs stated that the organization systematically evaded payments of debts to creditors (Article 177 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and also did not comply with court decisions (Article 315 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The total amount of debt, if we follow the enforcement proceedings underlying the criminal prosecution, amounted to about 25 million rubles.
Dmitry Starikov has been the head of BMA LLC since 2016.  According to data from the open sources, almost 75% of the authorized capital of the company is assigned to an offshore company, which is pledged to VTB.  The owner of another 25% of the capital is the Sibprominitiative company, located in Kuzbass.  The Bakal mine itself, from which the minerals are extracted, has been developed in the Urals since 1757.

10.02.2022