The new owners of E4 are close to Veles Capital, they updated the board of directors and replaced the president of the company, Media. How bankruptcy management occurs Main features of a managed bankruptcy procedure

Arbitration court Moscow declared bankrupt the E4 Group, a large Russian engineering company that specializes in the design and production of technological equipment, primarily energy equipment. Igor Vyshegorodtsev has been appointed bankruptcy trustee; his report on the progress of the bankruptcy procedure will be considered on April 28.

Claim shaft

Just three years ago - based on the results of 2013 - "E4" occupied a leading position in the domestic market of engineering construction, leading in the market of general contracting for the construction of power plants. And in the large generation sector (construction of capacities over 100 MW), the market share of the E4 Group in terms of the order portfolio for 2013 was 20%.

Despite all these achievements, already in the next year, 2014, the Group’s business came under attack. A whole series of attacks hit the corporation lawsuits. Applications submitted to the courts from a variety of corporations demanded money and bankruptcy of E4. This avalanche could not be called artificially created: large financial players were seen among the plaintiffs. Thus, in November-December, Alfa Bank structures filed six claims against the E4 Group in the Moscow Arbitration Court for a total amount of about 5.4 billion rubles. They were all satisfied. Sberbank filed four claims totaling about 6 billion rubles. In favor of OGK-2, the Moscow arbitration court recovered 3.4 billion rubles from the E4 Group.

In general, the amount of claims against the E4 engineering group from creditors, customers, subcontractors and suppliers by the summer of 2015 exceeded 18.6 billion rubles.

Thus, it is not surprising that already in June 2015, a monitoring procedure was introduced in relation to the E4 Group. Something else surprised me. The Moscow Arbitration Court introduced it at the request of Axiom of Law CJSC. Against the backdrop of billions of dollars in claims from the largest banks, 2 million rubles in claims from Axiom looked somewhat comical. “Currently we are unable to repay the debt, we ask the court to grant the application,” a representative of the E4 Group said at the meeting. And put an end to the history of the “Group”. Current financial activities The company had been suspended by that time, and everyone was simply preparing for a controlled sale of assets. It started immediately. Exactly on the day of the introduction of external management, 100% of the shares of E4 Group JSC were purchased by a group of unnamed private investors. Accordingly, the terms and amount of the transaction were not announced.

Mikhail Abyzov and backstage

The real signal for the collapse of the E4 Group can be considered the exit from the business of this company Mikhail Abyzov, who from July 2007 to January 2012 headed the board of directors of E4 Group OJSC. Coming from the depths of RAO UES, it quite logically fits into the assets for the creation of energy capacities. It was believed that Mikhail Abyzov controlled the company through the offshore Eforg Asset Management, which is managed by the Ru-COM group.

One can only speculate about whose interests and political objectives Abyzov actually represented. But the years of the Group’s rise coincided with the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev. Abyzov himself served as coordinator of the Public Committee of Supporters of Russian President D. A. Medvedev. He, in fact, retained these functions when he moved to the government headed by Dmitry Anatolyevich, to the strange position for an official of Minister of Relations with Open Government. Well, at least not behind the scenes.

Mikhail Abyzov's participation in the government may have a completely prosaic explanation. The criminal case opened against the management of the E4 Group received a new lease of life this spring.

Alfa Bank is constantly and tirelessly taking care of its continuation, at whose suggestion this case was opened. In this situation, of course, it is better to be a minister without portfolio than to be accused under the article. Will such posts really be too tough for the courts and the now all-powerful security forces?

Employees of E4 Group demanded that the richest minister in the government, Medvedev, who headed the company, who declared several houses and apartments in Russia, Great Britain and Italy last year, return back wages

“Abyzov, pay back the debts to E4 workers!”, “The fish rots from the head: corruption begins with Minister Abyzov”, “Mr. Abyzov, you did a “dirty” thing - sit down safely!” – with these slogans, picket activists in support of employees of a subsidiary of the E4 Group appeared the other day near the building of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation. The organizers of the action are members of the Interregional social movement against corruption - they demanded to pay off wage arrears to workers, which already exceeded 100 million rubles.

Members of the movement’s initiative group point out that Minister Abyzov continues to manage the E4 Group in violation of the law prohibiting officials from engaging in business activities, and directs the company’s profits to his own enrichment, not paying attention to the pre-bankruptcy state of the engineering holding. “Mikhail Abyzov is actively promoting initiatives to combat corruption, although his own income needs explanation. In this regard, we urge you to check the activities of Minister Abyzov and establish facts of violation of the law on his part,” said Alexey Ivanov, executive director of the Interregional Public Movement against Corruption.

Let us remember that this spring Abyzov became the richest minister of the government. For 2013, he declared as much as 282.9 million rubles, despite the fact that the year before he earned “only” 60.3 million. An increase in income of almost 5 times is hardly possible on a standard official salary. “The reason for the high income lies in the implementation of the law banning civil servants from owning foreign assets, in connection with which foreign shares were sold,” the minister’s representative tried to dispel suspicions then. But this is hard to believe.

Forbes magazine estimates the official's fortune at approximately $1.25 billion, which the founder of the RU-COM group, even before moving to government service in January 2012, made in the energy, construction, engineering, mechanical engineering and agriculture. All the more strange is the fact that an entire group of companies, founded by the richest official in the country, is today on the verge of bankruptcy. Mikhail Abyzov, who began his stellar career as Chubais’s deputy at RAO UES, headed the board of directors of E4 Group back in 2007 and in three years received 10% of the repair and 30% of the construction market for power plant construction in Russia (presumably, the former boss is not on the sidelines remained). According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities dated March 31, 2014, this spring the only founder of “E4” was the Cypriot offshore Eforg Asset Management Ltd, which, according to market participants, is associated with the minister’s wife Ekaterina Sirotenko.

By the end of the seven-year period of the E4 Group's existence, the position of this previously prosperous engineering company had changed dramatically. Recently, there have been regular reports in the media that its staff is being laid off, and the remaining “lucky ones” are having their salaries cut. Corporate debts, on the contrary, are growing. It’s surprising: just two years ago the company’s name was mentioned in large-scale projects in different regions of Russia, but now it is mentioned only in scandals.

Not so long ago, for example, employees of one of the subsidiaries (E4-Tsentrenergomontazh) announced a months-long delay in payments at its facilities throughout the country: at the construction of the Serov, Cherepovets, Nyaganskaya GRES. The prosecutor's office intervened in the case: when the amount of debt exceeded 100 million rubles, the security forces could not help but respond to numerous complaints from workers and threats of a strike. Apparently, the participation of the prosecutor's office in solving the problem was formal, otherwise there would have been no reason to hold the picket. Apparently, Abyzov and the law enforcement agencies “have everything covered.”

Subcontractors are also dissatisfied: during the construction of the Nyagan State District Power Plant, thousands of highly qualified specialists protested and went on a hunger strike demanding that Abyzov pay off the billion-dollar debt. It is significant that at the same time, E4 Group regularly received advance payments from the customer OJSC Fortum, the contract with which is worth more than tens of billions of rubles.

In whose pockets did these gigantic sums disappear? Is it not those whose personal incomes have increased fivefold in just a year? Probably, having made a move from E4 straight to the White House, Mikhail Abyzov did not forget to take corporate funds with him. In this regard, a reasonable question arises: who will now be responsible for the debts of the group abandoned by the richest official in the country? And we are talking not only about debts to the company’s employees, but also about the multibillion-dollar loans that the current minister once took out to develop the business.

At the same time, the story with the E4 Group is not an unfortunate exception: Abyzov acted in a similar way with foreign assets. That is, a certain trend is emerging. Back in 2006, he acquired the British company Powerfuel with mothballed coal mines in South Yorkshire, which he promised to turn into a successful enterprise with its own brand new power plant nearby. Soon, indeed, good profits began to flow, but the miners did not feel it. Over the past eight years, instead of taking off, first the coal company faced losses, then a default on loans, then external management and bankruptcy. The miners were left without work, the region lost taxes, and the owner lost his mine... But, according to British experts, Abyzov “had some amount lost in the mine.” It seems the same story is repeating itself with E4. The company received money from customers, but a significant part of it ended up in the pockets of the final beneficiaries, without reaching the employees.

And it’s not surprising, because Mikhail Abyzov didn’t just start his career with Chubais. At RAO UES, he was responsible for “knocking out debts” - a very useful skill for a provincial collector, but hardly commendable for a minister who is obliged to think about the social consequences of his own greed. Two years ago I conducted an investigation on this topic editor-in-chief"Industrial Vedomosti" Moses Gelman, who came to the conclusion that the privatization of debts for electricity was carried out by Abyzov through bankruptcy and other raider methods.

Apparently, the minister has not lost these skills to this day: the E4 Group is in debt, and its founder is in debt. For last year the official declared several houses and apartments not only in Russia, but also in the UK and Italy. And in addition to the banal Mercedes and flashy Porsches, he even owns his own ROBINSON44 CLIPPER II helicopter. Yes, one ministerial fleet of vehicles would probably be enough to pay off the debts of E4-Tsentrenergomontazh, but who thinks about them, about ordinary workers...

It turns out they do. The media have written more than once that the All-Russian Popular Front has long been dissatisfied with the oligarchic habits of the official, and the ONF today is an important personnel barometer. It is obvious that Mikhail Abyzov has not spared pawns in his career game so far, but his “move on E4,” which discredits not only the minister personally, but also the government as a whole, threatens to become fatal for the official.

The Moscow Arbitration Court declared E4 Group, a large Russian engineering company that specializes in the design and production of technological equipment, primarily energy equipment, bankrupt. Igor Vyshegorodtsev has been appointed bankruptcy trustee; his report on the progress of the bankruptcy procedure will be considered on April 28. Claim shaft Just three years ago - based on the results of 2013 - "E4" occupied a leading position in the domestic market of engineering construction, leading in the market of general contracting for the construction of power plants. And in the large generation sector (construction of capacities over 100 MW), the market share of the E4 Group in terms of the order portfolio for 2013 was 20%. Despite all these achievements, already in the next year, 2014, the Group’s business came under attack. The corporation was hit with a series of lawsuits. Applications submitted to the courts from a variety of corporations demanded money and bankruptcy of E4. This avalanche could not be called artificially created: large financial players were seen among the plaintiffs. Thus, in November-December, Alfa Bank structures filed six claims against the E4 Group in the Moscow Arbitration Court for a total amount of about 5.4 billion rubles. They were all satisfied. Sberbank filed four claims totaling about 6 billion rubles. In favor of OGK-2, the Moscow arbitration court recovered 3.4 billion rubles from the E4 Group. In general, the amount of claims against the E4 engineering group from creditors, customers, subcontractors and suppliers by the summer of 2015 exceeded 18.6 billion rubles. Thus, it is not surprising that already in June 2015, a monitoring procedure was introduced in relation to the E4 Group. Something else surprised me. The Moscow Arbitration Court introduced it at the request of Axiom of Law CJSC. Against the backdrop of billions of dollars in claims from the largest banks, 2 million rubles in claims from Axiom looked somewhat comical. “Currently we are unable to repay the debt, we ask the court to grant the application,” a representative of the E4 Group said at the meeting. And put an end to the history of the “Group”. The company's ongoing financial activities had been suspended by that time, and everyone was simply preparing for a controlled sale of assets. It started immediately. Exactly on the day of the introduction of external management, 100% of the shares of E4 Group JSC were purchased by a group of unnamed private investors. Accordingly, the terms and amount of the transaction were not announced. Mikhail Abyzov and backstage The real signal for the collapse of the E4 Group can be considered the exit from the business of this company by Mikhail Abyzov, who from July 2007 to January 2012 headed the board of directors of E4 Group OJSC. Coming from the depths of RAO UES, it quite logically fits into the assets for the creation of energy capacities. It was believed that Mikhail Abyzov controlled the company through the offshore Eforg Asset Management, which is managed by the Ru-COM group. One can only speculate about whose interests and political objectives Abyzov actually represented. But the years of the Group’s rise coincided with the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev. Abyzov himself served as coordinator of the Public Committee of Supporters of Russian President D. A. Medvedev. He, in fact, retained these functions when he moved to the government headed by Dmitry Anatolyevich, to the strange position for an official of Minister of Relations with Open Government. Well, at least not behind the scenes. Mikhail Abyzov's participation in the government may have a completely prosaic explanation. The criminal case opened against the management of the E4 Group received a new lease of life this spring. Alfa Bank, at whose suggestion this case was initiated, is constantly and tirelessly taking care of its continuation. In this situation, of course, it is better to be a minister without portfolio than to be accused under the article. Will such posts really be too tough for the courts and the now all-powerful security forces?