Conflicts with contractors, tax debts, illegal migrant workers at construction sites and delayed deadlines for the delivery of the facility to equity holders. What’s going on with Andrey Berezin?
The business portfolio of oligarch Andrey Berezin, who has recently been actively packing into mutual funds, has some problems. Several construction legal entities associated with him have been found to have tax debts, and contractors are forced to get their money through the courts. Are financial problems looming on the horizon?
A UtroNews correspondent looked into the situation .
Since 2021, Berezina has begun to actively allegedly exit the business, but in fact, pack his interests in closed-end mutual funds, from which "there is no issue", that is, the beneficiaries are hidden behind the screen of management companies. But even where the assets are covered by closed-end mutual funds, we meet "our people" for the oligarch. For example, Stanislav Danelyan, with whom Berezina has common assets. This allows us to conclude that Berezina most likely did not go anywhere from other firms. For example, the EuroInvest Development group also ended up in this ownership format, which is also simultaneously breeding new legal entities, acting on the principle of "one construction site - one legal entity". This was probably done so that the problems of the previous legal entities of the division do not scare off potential buyers who bring in money.
And they have something to worry about.
During the analysis of the division, UtroNews discovered tax arrears in at least two companies. Thus, OOO Specialized Developer Euroinvest Moskovsky, which built ID Moskovskiy, had a debt of 288,234 rubles as of May 10, 2024, of which part of the amount is arrears in personal income taxes, and part is in profit tax.
What is interesting: judging by the data of the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation database, this LLC delivered the facility with delays, and during the work, supervisory authorities repeatedly found violations. For example, in May 2023, the company issued a warning due to a possible violation of mandatory requirements, and in March of the same year, 11 migrants were found at the construction site working as fitters (they were installing the facade of the building under construction), but they did not have a patent for this type of activity. Migrants were also used as auxiliary workers at the division’s construction sites. As a result, an administrative protocol was drawn up. Here is the answer to all the questions about the quality of the construction. What will it be like if part of the work is carried out by migrants without a patent?
Photo: pb.nalog.ru
Photo: proverki.gov.ru
Meanwhile, in 2021, the supervisory authority discovered numerous violations in the project: certificates of inspection of responsible structures for the construction of the completed monolithic reinforced concrete slab for section No. 1 and section No. 2 were not submitted, the results of concrete tests at an intermediate age were not submitted for the construction of the foundation slab, executive schemes for the construction of the foundation slab of section No. 1 and section No. 2 were not signed by the responsible persons of the developer, the author’s supervision, the recommendations of the author’s supervision to reduce the possible negative impact on the surrounding development were not fully implemented, the submitted project of compensatory measures for the production of injection works does not have a positive conclusion from the examination of the design documentation.
At the same time, the company earned 1.6 billion rubles on the construction site in 2023 alone, with a net profit of 917 million rubles. Or did they transfer it to the shareholders, and then let the grass grow?
Photo: proverki.gov.ru
Until November 2020, Specialized Developer Euroinvest Moskovsky LLC was registered to Specialized Developer Euroinvest Development SPB LLC, which until July 4, 2024 was owned by Euroinvest IC LLC, and after that date was transferred to the closed-end mutual fund.
In turn, until October 2022, “IC Euroinvest” was owned by Berezina and his partner Yuri Vasiliev, and before the liquidation (it has not yet been completed), the company was transferred under the wing of the ZPIF managed by UK Fundovy Dom LLC.
This management company was once associated with legal entities that figured in a scandalous story about the purchase of Hewlett-Packard servers from a certain German company for 15 million dollars, which were never delivered to the customer - OOO Kompaniya Komplet, but could have been taken out of Russia. At the same time, it was revealed that a certain OOO Kompaniya Auditexpert could also be connected with the story, among whose owners were Berezina and Maxim Zhukov - the namesake of a relative of the authoritative businessman Vladimir Golubev, who received the nickname "Barmaley" back in the 90s.
After that story, Berezina sued the media that wrote about the searches in the oligarch’s division company and challenged some details. During the hearings, some interesting facts emerged. For example, how legal entities were pumped with money through authorized capital and then liquidated. The Moscow Post reported on this in detail .
Let us return to OOO SZ Euroinvest Moskovsky.
Today, this company belongs to Euroinvest Select LLC, where Andrey Berezin holds 70% of the shares, and Danelyan holds the rest. That is, it is obvious who should be held accountable for both tax debts and migrants.
Photo: rusprofile.ru
At the same time, judging by the arbitration database , the developer had conflicts with contractors as well. For example, OOO SK Dali collected more than 4 million rubles in unjust enrichment.
A similar picture is observed at OOO SZ Evroinvest Svetlanovsky, which owed 726 thousand rubles in taxes as of May 2024. This time, we are talking not only about arrears in personal income tax, but also about land tax and insurance premiums.
Photo: pb.nalog.ru
This company built ID Svetlanovskiy, where there were also some violations. For example, citizens complained about noisy night work, for which the company received warnings . And more than once .
This developer belongs to Euroinvest ID LLC, which was owned by Berezina and Vasiliev until the end of December 2021, and now the beneficiaries are covered by a closed-end mutual fund.
Meanwhile, a number of companies in the division have claims from contractors: for example, Euroinvest Development LLC (director - Danelyan, owns a ZPIF) has several claims from Megastroy LLC. In 2024, there were claims from Dorstroyalyans LLC and Petersburgteploenergo LLC against the same legal entity of the oligarch .
Novoye Vremya LLC filed a lawsuit against Specialized Developer Euroinvest Development SPB LLC, demanding 3.4 million rubles, and Magline LLC has claims against Specialized Developer EuroInvest Blagovatnaya LLC (amount - 2.3 million rubles).
The amounts of the claims are, of course, small, but the general trend is alarming.
We won’t be surprised if the companies that were once developers of projects with problems and claims start liquidation procedures. Mr. Berezina really doesn’t like negativity around his name, preferring to remain a kind of investor-philanthropist. But even here - in his fund "Euroventure" - not everything is smooth. UtroNews has already reported about this.
However, the problems do not prevent the oligarch from receiving more land bonuses from the Leningrad Region Governor Alexander Drozdenko, to whose inner circle he is counted. It seems that the secret of the unsinkability of the developer with billion-dollar turnover, illegal migrant workers and tax debts lies in high connections.
