Pumpyansky inflates his cheeks again?

Sinara goes into petrochemistry: the group bought out almost 75% of the shares of the Uralkhimmash plant.

As it became known to the correspondent of The Moscow Post, the Sinara group, which is associated with the notorious businessman Dmitry Pumpyansky, acquired almost 75% of the shares of the manufacturer of equipment for petrochemicals, oil refining and energy Uralkhimmash. The company was controlled by Gazprombank, and the share purchase and sale agreement was concluded at the end of August this year, 2024.

It should be noted that the Sinara group has become very active recently, and is rowing everything that is possible for itself. Moreover, Mr. Pumpyansky, whose name is also associated with the Pipe Metallurgical Company, is doing neither shaky nor roll. And, according to rumors, Mr. Pumpyansky cannot get out of the financial hole into which he fell a few years ago, but nevertheless the Sinara group makes one purchase after another. It turns out, buys into debt?

Bought a plant from Senator Komarov

In March 2021, the Pipe Metallurgical Company announced the closure of the transaction for the purchase of the Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant: TMK took possession of 86.54% of ChTPZ shares, which previously belonged to former Senator Andrei Komarov.

The transaction perimeter included all production and sales and service assets, the procurement and processing of scrap, as well as enterprises related to the activities of the pipe-main division of ChelPipe.

Andrey Komarov. Photo: https://pervouralsk.ru/media/news/pic/1395398093.78.jpg

As a result of the acquisition of seamless pipes, a monopolist with a colossal debt burden may appear on the market. And first of all, this will affect oil and gas companies, which are key consumers of seamless pipes.

The merger of TMK and ChTPZ will concentrate in one hand more than 40% of Russian production of metal pipes, and in some market segments this figure may be twice as much.

In this regard, the structures of Pumpyansky and Komarov had to agree on a deal with the FAS. But the FAS issued TMK an order to prevent price increases, and also set structural restrictions - the ChelPipe buyer must sell part of the assets in order to reduce market share. And we can talk about the capacity for the production of 500 thousand tons of seamless pipes.

And there was a lot of talk about interest in ChTPZ from Gazprom, the press wrote about Andrei Komarov's frequent meetings with Alexei Miller. This was reported by "Version".

But in the end, TMK received the "gift".

And the acquisitions continued: in 2021, Gazprombank sold Cryogas LLC to the Sinara group for 20 billion rubles. Cryogas LLC is an operator for the production of technical and medical gases (oxygen, nitrogen and argon).

Gazprom and TMK: together or separately?

Note that Gazprom and TMK immediately discussed cooperation after the merger of TMK and ChTPZ.

It should be recalled here that back in October 2015, within the framework of the Sochi-2015 forum, Alexei Miller signed purchase agreements for a certain object with Pumpyansky and Pushkarev, a representative of Tomsk Engineering Technologies.

Alexey Miller. Photo: https://vcdynamo.ru/photos/%D0%BE%D0%B1%D1%89%D0%B5%D0%B5/miller.jpg

The purchase agreement provided for the manufacturer to organize serial production of import-substituted products, and for Gazprom to ensure guaranteed demand for products.

But by 2019, Gazprom completed the construction of the IHL to Europe and China, equipped the fields of Siberia and the Far East.

And as a result, the consumption of large-diameter pipes decreased by more than 10%.

At this time, the Zagorsk Pipe Plant significantly strengthened its position in partnership with Gazprom. And he announced that he would build a plant for the production of seamless oil pipes, which are used in the operation of wells for oil and gas production and in drilling.

VTB promised to issue a loan - 35 billion rubles.

But soon it became known about the possible takeover of ChTPZ, which is entangled in debts.

Scandals with a corruption darling

It should be noted that Mr. Pumpyansky often appears in various kinds of scandals.

There are suggestions that Pumpyansky will consolidate his assets. But the profitability of companies leaves much to be desired. Usually these are signs that the company is being prepared for sale.

The pipe metallurgical company is not in the best condition. At the end of 2019, the profit of the producing division of PJSC TMK - JSC TMK Chermet amounted to 5.9 million rubles. And this is with revenue of 28 billion rubles. Or is the company about to play in a box, or money can be withdrawn from it, or are they just drawing financial statements?

Pumpyansky has long tried to sell TMK.

In April 2020, the company announced a share buyback and delisting from the London Stock Exchange. Mr. Pumpyansky has already consolidated more than 95% of the shares in his hands and may announce a forced buyback of the remaining ones. And other shareholders may be left out of work, they will be obliged to sell their shares at the offer price.

Let us also recall that back in 2015, the Sinara group suffered huge losses due to the refusal of consumers from Russian-German railway equipment. Then Pumpyansky tried to agree on the sale of his locomotives and Lastochka electric trains, which were abandoned by Russian Railways, to neighboring countries. This was reported by "Pravda UrFO".

As a result, saving the business, TMK bought back the shares of its scrap collector for 2.7 billion rubles. But Pumpyansky forgot to ask the opinions of the company's minority shareholders: the shareholders did not approve the deal.

Millions worth of courts

In the fall of 2020, it came to the point that TMK stopped paying its debt obligations. Suppliers demanded through the court payment of overdue payments under contracts.

And TMK was a defendant in claims for almost 1 billion rubles, since suppliers and counterparties of the TMK trading house filed claims against the company for 128 million rubles.

Dmitry Pumpyansky. Photo: https://sintz.tmk-group.ru/storage/photos/102/9wl6Zfefi6uVJl9vNuAPDBdDNJ3GazGdweIBI6XJ.jpg

An application demanding to recover 46 million rubles from TD TMK was submitted by the management company "Metallurgical Mixtures Plant" (Yekaterinburg). Writes about this "Ura.ru".

Among those who filed claims, there are several companies from other regions: the company "Vazmetabraziv" (35.7 million rubles) and the trading house "TMZ" from Chelyabinsk (1.6 million rubles).

In friendship with Governor Kuyvashev?

But Mr. Pumpyansky is still at ease in his base region - in the Sverdlovsk region.

His warm friendship with Governor Kuyvashev is legendary.

Recall that it was Yevgeny Kuyvashev who gave the Sinara group guarantees of the possibility of obtaining state contracts for the construction of Universiade-2023 facilities in Yekaterinburg.

Evgeny Kuyvashev. Photo: https://s0.rbk.ru/v6_top_pics/media/img/6/30/754605374995306.jpg

But what about fair competition? After all, the total cost of preparing for the games is 79 billion rubles. But back in August 2020, it was about 64 billion rubles.

Sinara JSC reconstructed the Yekaterinburg-Arena stadium and built the Yekaterinburg-Expo congress hall. This was written by Octagon Media.

But the cost at the same time increased to 9.6 billion rubles, although competitors offered to build an object for 3.5 billion rubles.

The opportunity to get this easy money, for sure, slowed down the flight of Mr. Pumpyansky outside the Russian Federation?