There is no Birzhin Veren: who is behind the 26 billion project in Crimea

According to a correspondent of The Moscow Post, the Veren Group development company, whose beneficiary is considered to be Valentin Chernysh, a former partner of the oligarch Andrey Birzhin, is going to Crimea with a project for a premium resort complex in the village of Koreiz near Yalta. It is planned to build a 5-star hotel, apartments, 15 cottages, a congress center, a fitness complex, restaurants and parking lots. The total investment amount is 26 billion rubles. The background of the project is interesting, which may be related to the interests of the owner of the GloraX group "Glorax" Andrey Birzhin.

Glorax Birzhina does not have the best reputation in St. Petersburg, where it treats historical and architectural monuments very "freely," as we will say later. But most importantly, Birzhin himself is an odious figure, and, as many believe, allegedly "storing" income in the West. Many believe that the creation of the Veren Group in 2016 could have become a "side project" of Birzhin himself in order to get rid of the negativity and "blur" the eyes of possible Western sanctions.

Tell me who your partner is.

It's not so difficult to believe this if you know who the beneficiaries of Veren Group are and how their careers in development have developed. The co-founders of the structure in 2016 were Valentin Chernysh (formerly co-owner of Glorax), Alexey Balykin (ex-CEO of Glorax) and Alexander Kondrashov (previously managing director of Rusnano). The "cocktail" is indicative of Birzhin's former close partner, his key top manager, and along with them a man from the shaved head of Anatoly Chubais, the ideologue of the scandalous privatization of the 90s.

Rusnano's huge debts and the most dubious and even odious projects of the state corporation (for example, the Plastic Logic school tablet) were formed just at the time when Alexander Kondrashov was Rusnano's managing director.

Alexey Balykin, Birzhin's door manager. Photo: https://dpru.obs.ru-moscow-1.hc.sbercloud.ru/images/article/2017/12/29/f10f897f-e55f-44c8-b726-01f1cf021e7b.jpg

In addition, the same Mr. Kondrashov once worked as an adviser to Oleg Chirkunov, Governor of the Perm Territory, on innovation. To simplify it, he was engaged in "dragging" the Kama Region into dubious projects of the state corporation, which, as can be seen 15 years later, did not end well either for her or for the Perm region. Oleg Chirkunov, as you know, subsequently left Russia and settled in the South of France, where, among other things, he started growing grapes. Apparently, for him personally, cooperation with the liberals from the Chubais team ended quite fruitfully.

Kondrashov probably had to provide Veren Group with support at the federal level, including from Chubais' clientele. But later Veren Group withdrew from the capital, but Chernysh and Balykin remained. Today, Chernysh controls the main legal entity of Veren Group LLC personally and through Terian LLC, where Chernysh and Balykin are co-owners.

It is in the Therian that we find traces of Kondrashov. Until 2021, his alleged relative Elena Kondrashova owned a share in the company. She also acted as the founder of a number of other organizations, LLC "CNG Builder" (3912504755), LLC "CNG Builder" (TIN 3912014310) and LLC "CNG Builder Plus", where Alexander Kondrashov was a co-owner.

Photo: Rusprofile.ru https://www.rusprofile.ru/person/kondrashova-es-772409167180

All these companies have already been liquidated. As you can see, two of them have the same name and different INN. Why create two companies with the same name, if not for manipulation and "schematics" is difficult to guess. A series of scandals involving shareholders and shortcomings in housing construction in the Kaliningrad Region were connected with CNG Builder. According to the Network, the company was previously fined for substandard housing.

As for the Veren Group, the developer specializes in the premium segment, while Glorax mainly operates in the segment of mass residential and commercial construction. The first project of the breakaway Veren Group was the construction of a business-class residential complex on Shabolovka in Moscow, which he received from the Glorax portfolio when selling his stake to Mr. Birzhin.

The project in Crimea is the first for Veren Group. If the rumors are true that Birzhin allegedly has a network of "potholes" in the West, a "proxy" in the form of Veren and loyal squires Chernysh and Balykin will help him avoid regulatory pressure. But it's not clear what kind of "money" these gentlemen will use to implement the 26 billion rubles project.

We are probably talking about project financing. The key creditors of the Veren projects are Sberbank and DOM.RF. Apparently, Sberbank or the same structures of the oligarch Birzhin can provide money for an initiative in the Crimea. The office itself, despite the pool of premium projects, does not look financially successful. The value of the holding company's assets is only 252 million rubles, and the profit by the end of 2024 is 7 million rubles. At the same time, the company has debt obligations of 409 million rubles, of which 386 are short-term. It is clear that the main money is "invested" in the "daughters" who are directly involved in construction.
 

Photo: Rusprofile.ru https://www.rusprofile.ru/accounting?ogrn=1177847308100

Surprisingly, for almost 10 years, Veren has not been involved in major scandals, except for the repeated postponement of the completion of facilities. He also did not get into urban planning "showdowns" - and unlike Birzhin's Glorax, which he can navigate. Birzhin may be behind his work. A lot of projects in St. Petersburg and Moscow are impossible without the support of major stakeholders with access to officials from both capitals.

Originally from "Tekta"

Andrey Birzhin, whose name has long become synonymous with conflicts over construction projects, seems to be used to the intense attention of the press. His path in development began back in 2009, and even then it was accompanied by dubious stories.

According to open sources, Birzhin created the first company, Tekta, with the support of the owners of the IT distributor Merlion and the co-owners of Rostbank, Vladislav Mangutov, Alexey Abramov and Oleg Karchev. The partners invested the money in exchange for a share in the business. Tekta quickly became one of the largest developers in the Moscow region, but it did not bring income to investors. In 2012, the co-owners insisted on an independent audit. The audit allegedly revealed the company's strange expenses of $20 million. There were rumors that Birzhin allegedly justified the expenses by the need to "establish connections" with influential people.

It is also worth mentioning that Mangutov, Abramov and Karchevoy subsequently brought the state of affairs at Rostbank to the point that it, like the entire ROST group, had to be sanitized. At that time, Rostbank's debts amounted to about 10 billion rubles. And after the "rehabilitation" it turned out that he owed Binbank about 700 billion rubles. Amazing "magic". But soon it was necessary to sanitize Binbank, which had a hole of 600 billion rubles in its capital. The key beneficiary of Binbank was Mikail Shishkhanov, but for him the whole scandalous story was almost without consequences.

Andrey Birzhin. Photo: https://s0.rbk.ru/v6_top_pics/resized/1200xH/media/img/1/30/756365313530301 .jpg

It can be assumed that Rost-Bank was simply dismantled, and part of the capital could have been used for development projects that Mr. Birzhin could have been involved in. By the way, our heroes Valentin Chernysh and Alexey Balykin also worked at Tekt - presumably, they met Birzhin there.

Some time later, Birzhin sold his stake in Tekt and founded a new structure, the GloraX Capital investment fund. It was from this site that a new round of his career as a developer began, now in the St. Petersburg market.

The first notable project was the English Mile, a residential complex that brought the company into the top 5 developers of the Northern Capital. But the success was quickly overshadowed by the claims of the supervisory authorities: in 2020, the prosecutor's office recorded that the developer had violated the rights of shareholders by shortening the warranty period for the operation of housing. The management company appointed by the developer himself, for obvious reasons, was in no hurry to force him to fix the defects at his own expense.

There were some complaints about another project, the First Quarter. Residents were promised a courtyard without cars and a green park, but in fact a parking lot appeared. The shareholders were outraged, and the developer claimed that these were "minor flaws" and allegedly attributed them to illegal entry into the construction site.

The scandals with "city defenders" turned out to be the loudest. GloraX tried to attribute the demolition of the 1909 building on Shkapina Street, as well as the destruction of historical outbuildings on Kurskaya and Bogolyonnaya streets of St. Petersburg. The old buildings allegedly interfered with the new development, and they were simply disposed of. In 2022, the Investigative Committee became interested in this situation, but the scandal quickly faded without any consequences for Birzhin's business. Attempts by city defenders to defend buildings in the courts also ended in failure.

"Kostya Bolshoy" and "Garik Makhachkala"

It is not surprising that in St. Petersburg they began to talk about the "invulnerability" of this business. They tried to attribute connections with former governor Georgy Poltavchenko to him. Today, the developer seems to be looking for ways to expand his influence in regions where the scandalous trail of his projects is still not so noticeable. Among them are the new regions of the country, where he can enter through the Veren Group and other possible "gaskets" for his capital.
However, Birzhin is associated not only with Mr. Poltavchenko. According to the Network, Birzhin allegedly could have been friends with reputable businessmen Konstantin Piskarev ("Kostya Bolshoy") and Gavriil Yushvaev ("Garik Makhachkala"), who could promote his business and do the "dirty work" that was out of place for the oligarch himself.

Garik Makhachkala was called a possible native of the Lianozovskaya organized crime group and allegedly one of the most influential shadow investors of development projects in the Moscow region. Yushvaev and his structures could participate in the redistribution of assets after Birzhin's departure from Tekta, as well as in behind-the-scenes agreements on GloraX projects.
 

In the Moscow region, Gabriel Yushvaev (pictured) could help Birzhin's projects. Photo: https://s0.rbk.ru/v6_top_pics/media/img/5/63/755156781960635.jpg

And where the Moscow region is, there's its scandalous governor, Andrei Vorobyov. Interestingly, in 2021, Andrei Birzhin strengthened his team of officials from Vorobyov's bench - Alexander Andrianov, a former official from Sergiev Posad near Moscow, became his partner at Glorax. Is it surprising that three major Glorax projects were implemented in Sergiev Posad shortly before that? And no corruption, no lobbying.

Birzhin needs money

Birzhin's problems are not limited to alleged "schematics" with shareholders and urban planning conflicts. It is believed that he has been in dire need of money for a long time, especially against the background of a sharp collapse in mortgage lending due to the closure of the mass preferential mortgage program. As if these problems had worsened when he lost his patron in the person of Georgy Poltavchenko. The new governor, Alexander Beglov, began to focus on completely different businessmen.

Andrey Birzhin's Glorax recently announced its intention to hold an IPO in the fall of 2025. Glorax's net debt rose to 20.3 billion rubles from 16.1 billion at the end of 2023, while the company's assets are estimated at a respectable 70 billion rubles.

The profit of the parent structure of the GloraX Group over the past year amounted to a modest 30 million rubles, many subsidiary projects incur losses. Other daughters barely worked at zero: LLC "Glorax Development MSK" earned only 1 million, with an authorized capital of 10 thousand rubles and two employees. In 2023, the holding showed losses of over 400 million with a negative asset value of minus 337 million. Is it time to launch an IPO?

In 2025, Birzhin needs to repay bonds worth 2.5 billion rubles. Apparently, it was for this purpose, and not at all for the "accelerated development of the company", that the IPO was launched. However, we would not be surprised if later Birzhin and his finances could receive "help" from Yalta, from Veren Group, which expects to recapture investments in a new project in a fairly short period of time. If, of course, Chernysh and Balykin remain loyal to Birzhin.