Balsky-style "bleeding"

Pavel Balsky could have sent a statement to the director of Toreks about his withdrawal from the company way back in April. This way, Balsky probably wants to avoid paying off Torex’s debts, which he once “extorted”. Will an entrepreneur get to avoid subsidiary liability?

Torex-Khabarovsk is the owner and strategic investor of the Amurstal metallurgical plant. Torex Group acquired the property of the plant at the auction in January 2017. Initially, Amurstal belonged to the wife of the governor of the Khabarovsk Territory Sergei Furgal - Larisa Starodubova (25%), the former business partner of the head of the region - Nikolai Mistryukov (25%) and Pavel Balsky (50%).

Later, the latter acquired 75% of the shares of the enterprise, after he bought off 25% from Mistryukov, who is currently doing time for murder. So Balsky, in fact, won complete control over the enterprise. Suspicions soon arose that the businessman was only acting in someone’s interests. His alleged departure from Torex confirms this once again.

Currently, the only electric smelting factory in the Far Eastern Federal District - Amurstal - is on the verge of bankruptcy. To save it, the government of the Khabarovsk Territory created a collateral fund, placing 130 billion rubles of regional property in it. This prompted concern of both the public and the FAS, which sent a warning to the Governor of Furgal about the inadmissibility of breaking the law.

Balsky was once reported to offer Furgal 2 billion rubles to save the plant, but his offer was refused. The governor can be understood - no one would want to be in debt to such a person. Balsky is considered to be a minion of the Rotenbergs, who, according to rumors, have long dreamed of complete control of Amurstal. Also, among the applicants for the asset were the former governor of the Khabarovsk Territory Vyacheslav Shport.

Balsky's goal in turn, apparently, was to "stuff" his pockets.

Amurstal affairs

Current relations between Amurstal’s shareholders cannot be called friendly, although earlier they seemed to trust the businessman.

The plant began to "shake" in the fall of 2019. Then inspections were carried out that could be connected with suspicions of tax evasion, as well as the creation of dozens of affiliated companies, at times exceeding the cost of scrap.

It is curious that the security officials became interested in Mistryukov, and the tax authorities - in the enterprise, precisely at the time of Pavel Balsky's arrival. Does this look like pressure? Over the past years, it has seemed that Balsky has been “pocketing” Khabarovsk assets and "bleeding" them dry.

Larisa Starodubova in the Arbitration Court tried to declare illegal the deal to acquire Balsky 25% of the shares from Mistryukov. In response to this, as Balsky told Regnum, he went to court with a request to recognize Starodubova as an ineligible shareholder.

Meanwhile, the events on Amurstal resembled an inimical takeover. Former plant director Sergei Kuznetsov was expelled. Certain Grigory Freidin,Balsky's man, was assigned to his position. In response, Kuznetsov filed a statement to the TFR "with a request to protect him from hard pressure from the majority founder Pavel Balsky and his team."

However, in March this information was refuted on Amurstal's website. Allegedly, on February 28, 2020, Kuznetsov accepted the offer of CEO Freidin to continue to work as his deputy in charge of production issues.

This statement looks rather strange. The court is still considering the claim of Starodubova against the overthrow of Kuznetsov from his position. The other day, a business woman filed a complaint to the court against the ruling of the court of first instance, which canceled the provision in the case of the change of the general director of the enterprise.

“Freudin’s dishonest actions may lead to the alienation of property, an increase in the debt burden and worsening of the financial situation of the company, which, in turn, will lead to a decrease in the actual value of the applicant’s share in the company,” Interfax quoted Starodubova's position .

it should be assumed that fears are fairly reasonable. One can hardly believe that Balsky was not involved in the affairs of Torex, which interested the security forces. According to the authors on the telegram channel "NEDEBRI", before sending an application for withdrawal from "Toreks", Balsky allegedly generated new debts. Now we are speaking of hundreds of millions of rubles.

And here is what is curious. The shares of the founders of Torex are under the burden of Vostochny Express bank, where the businessman's wife was on the board of directors. Meanwhile, the asset in 2018 was at a loss of 7.1 billion rubles. Could together the family launder money, in the meantime "begging" for new alms?

As the businessman told Regnum himself, back in February the Amurstal plant owed 700 million to Otkritie Bank, 250 million to Sberbank, 350 million to VTB.

Is there anything to charge for?

With his swift getaway, Balsky may seriously frame the construction companies of the region. According to rumors, the Monolit DV company purchased valves using credit funds of Amurstal, but the goods were never received, and the funds were not returned. How is this no longer the concern of a businessman?

According to REN TV, over 2 billion went missing from Amurstal. The workshops are empty, thousands of workers are idle, and the supply of scrap metal is almost paralyzed. Is it Balsky's "corporate identity"?

Evil tongues reminded the businessman of several ugly stories - allegedly, Balsky worked closely with the ex-head of one of the largest developers of the Cosmos NGO Andrei Chernyakov, extradited from Poland, who is suspected of embezzlement of more than 17 billion rubles.

For instance, Zvezda wrote that in 2011 Cosmos received more than 28 million rubles for the construction of the Judo Academy in Zelenograd. As a result, Chernyakov handed over the object with obvious "flaws" and forged acts of acceptance of the work performed. What could Balsky have to do with this?

The fact is that the businessman is a member of the presidium of the Russian Judo Federation, and is also the president of the non-profit partnership - National Judo Veterans Union - which is associated with the Rotenberg brothers. Rumors have it that Pavel Balsky has repeatedly lobbied for the interests of commercial organizations, including Chernyakov.

So, in the current situation, was Balsky representing the interests of others? According to The Moscow Post, the ex-governor of the region, Vyacheslav Shport, may be a beneficiary of what is happening at the plant. Pavel Balsky didn't engage the journalist Olga Shabalina, who was called the "mouthpiece" of Shport, for nothing. Or perhaps the omnipotent Rotenbergs indeed are behind such aggressive actions on Amurstal. It will be revealed soon.

Meanwhile, Balsky's trail went cold.