Are the "plane" landing: Shoigu, Tsalikov and Vorobyov "packing their bags"?

According to a correspondent of The Moscow Post, security forces conducted searches in the St. Petersburg offices of the development group Aeroplane, one of the country's largest developers, which is associated with the interests of former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the family of Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov. We may be talking about the situation related to the construction of two large residential complexes in the Northern Capital - Novoe Kolpino and Kurortny Kvartal. Earlier, according to statements by the shareholders of these residential complexes, two large-scale fraud cases were initiated against unidentified persons -the heads of the construction company. It seems that the background is banal: people have given money, but they have not received the keys to their apartments.

Something else is interesting. The Aeroplane Group of Companies had previously allowed for postponement of housing delivery dates, but it had never led to such a harsh reaction from law enforcement officers. According to sources, the current situation may be related to the weakening of the political influence of Sergei Shoigu's team, which previously could "cover up" all the scandals of the Aeroplane Group. Recently, a whole chain of extremely unpleasant events has been unfolding around the developer, which can lead to the sale, or even the collapse of the entire development structure.

It looks like the "Plane" is finally being brought in for landing. Let's look into it in more detail.

"Renovators" from the Ministry of Emergency Situations

The construction of the residential complex was carried out by a 100% subsidiary of Aeroplane, the Spb Renovation company. This name is "Renovation", which is very remarkable. The media wrote about Sergei Shoigu's attitude to the Aeroplane Group of Companies in 2022 precisely in connection with the renovation planned from the Northern Capital. They say that it was the Minister of Defense who was the main beneficiary of the program for the demolition of Khrushchev buildings and low-rise buildings in the northern capital. In September 2021, it was reported that the Aeroplane Group had closed a deal to purchase SPb Renovation, which had received the largest contracts in this area. Even before this whole story, until 2012, one of the co-owners of this company was Mikhail Kenin.

In 2009, St. Petersburg Renovation won the bidding for the right to renovate the 21st city block. Subsequently, she received another quarter (the contract with the winner of the bidding for it, the Warrior-V company, was terminated) The total cost of the work was estimated at 400 billion rubles. Some projects were postponed. As of the end of 2024, St. Petersburg Renovation was carrying out renovation work in five districts of St. Petersburg at once.

In any case, it turns out that Spb Renovation became the main "renovator" of the Northern Capital, after which it was bought by Airplane. And if this decision was not lobbied by Sergei Shoigu and the Vorobyov team, then by whom? Well, the Vorobyovs and Shoigu's connections are also well known. Sergei Shoigu has been working in the Ministry of Emergency Situations for almost 20 years with Yuri Vorobyov (now a senator of the Federation Council), they have long been family friends.

Sergei Shoigu and Andrey Vorobyov. In the background, Pavel Popov, the deputy head of the Ministry of Defense at that time, who is now involved in a criminal case of major fraud, claps his hands. Photo: https://mosreg.ru/upload/files/8/n/1080/8n8euz9YouR3fT28GvZ0nqShrfINdli9IFFJBKFEXlaSBpdQ6VgPbrRGCOjRTQ87xeqRInpvuYJRGf3oMJ5mvUx69HCWNr27.jpg

As for Andrey Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow Region, he himself has never been a member of the capital of the Aeroplane structures. But one of the co-founders of the holding was his brother Maxim Vorobyov. Subsequently, he received a share in the "Airplane Two Capitals" - initially, it was this structure that was supposed to "scale" the developer's business to St. Petersburg.

Kenin "left" - are the Tsalikovs "coming out"?

In 2021, after a number of publications in the press, Maxim Vorobyov and Grand Land LLC, associated with him, withdrew from IG 11 JSC, which was the co-founder of Airplane Two Capitals LLC together with PJSC GC Airplane. However, many in the market believed that Maxim Vorobyov and other members of his family could remain the real beneficiaries of the company, which by that time had become one of the largest developers in the country.

Mikhail Kenin, Maxim Vorobyov's long-time partner, remained the majority beneficiary of the Aircraft with a share of about 30%. They tried to present Kenin as the "nominal value" of the Vorobyovs. He recently passed away under unclear circumstances. According to the Network, allegedly shortly before that, he tried to sell his share to some large and influential player, but did not have time.

Mikhail Kenin. It is still not clear who will get his share in the "Plane". Photo: https://avatars.mds.yandex.net/i?id=ad129f4ccfafdc1dabe2b3d301f9861b_l-5227767-images-thumbs&n=13

The reason for the sale could be all the same serious problems that arose at the GC "Airplane" after the resignation of Sergei Shoigu from the post of head of the Ministry of Defense and the mortgage crisis. The developer has lost a significant part of the alleged political cover. The financial condition of the company has also deteriorated sharply - we will talk about this later.

We will not analyze in detail all the criminal cases brought against representatives of the Shoigu team - they are well known. Let's just say that the threat of criminal prosecution could also hang over former Deputy Defense Minister Ruslan Tsalikov, whom they tried to present as almost the "Grandfather Hassan" of the defense department under the former minister. According to the authors of the telegram channel "Nezygar" (recognized as a foreign agent in the territory of the Russian Federation), when Tsalikov failed to become a senator and receive immunity, his sons allegedly began withdrawing their assets from the contour of the "Plane." It can be assumed that both Tsalikov and his family could also be beneficiaries of the developer.

And after Shoigu's resignation, they ran like rodents from a sinking ship. And not only them. Indeed, at that moment, when Shoigu was still in office, none other than the scandalous oligarch, the owner of Kievskaya Square, God Nisanov, entered the capital of the already well-known subsidiary of the Two Capitals Aircraft. In 2021, he received about 10% of the structure, both through Kievskaya Square and personally. And almost immediately after the removal of Sergei Shoigu and the beginning of the anti-corruption purges in the Ministry of Defense, Nisanov abruptly left the "Plane", although then the developer's problems were not so obvious.

Andrey Vorobyov and his advisor God Nisanov. Photo: https://hdpic.club/uploads/posts/2021-11/1636550253_5-hdpic-club-p-nisanov-9.jpg

A man like God Nisanov doesn't do anything for nothing. Apparently, he realized that with the "fall" of Shoigu, the subsequent fate of his possible "pot" in the form of a development holding company would be unenviable. As for his connections with the Vorobyov-Shoigu clientele, it is quite obvious - Mr. Nisanov acts as an adviser to the governor of the Moscow Region, Andrei Vorobyov, on a voluntary basis.

It smells like bankruptcy.

Another important point. In October 2023 (i.e., just six months before Shoigu's resignation), Aeroplane acquired the Moscow developer MIT for an estimated 45 billion rubles. The deal was the largest in the housing development market in its entire history. Obviously, the holding was purchased not with its own funds, but with credit funds. After the alleged "political roof" flew off the "Plane", and the preferential mortgage program ended in Russia (and the residential real estate market began to sag), such debt should have proved to be an extremely heavy and unjustified burden for the holding company.

In just one year, the profit of the "Airplane" fell almost 10 times. Photo: Rusprofile.ru https://www.rusprofile.ru/id/11482080

As a result, the financial difficulties of the holding company began to increase sharply, in parallel with the decline in sales. The holding tried to compensate them again through loans: in the spring of 2025, the structure issued two bond issues in the CFA for 3 and 1.5 billion rubles. These issues were in addition to the existing issues of 85.8 billion rubles (in CFA) and 1.5 billion rubles (classic bonds).

The growth of the debt burden of GC "Airplane". Photo: https://smart-lab.ru/blog/1142202.php

The real disaster was the drop in sales. By the end of 2024, the holding sold 1.3 million square meters. housing construction, which is 17% less than a year earlier, and revenue decreased by 2% and amounted to 282 billion rubles. In the fourth quarter, the drop was catastrophic — sales fell by 45%, to 61.2 billion rubles, and the share of mortgage transactions fell from 89% to 55%. Demand for new apartments has collapsed amid the cancellation of preferential mortgages and high Central Bank rates, reaching 28-29% per annum.

As a result, in 2025, the developer will have to repay about 35 billion rubles of bonds and about 65 billion rubles of corporate debts, that is, about 100 billion per year. At the same time, as of December 2024, the group's total debt amounted to 740 billion rubles, of which 80% is project financing, that is, funds borrowed for the construction of housing that is practically not for sale. The net loan burden amounted to 148 billion rubles.

In parallel with all these problems, the developer's shares continued to fall. The largest decrease in their value in recent months (by 12% at once) occurred on August 21 against the background of news about searches in the St. Petersburg offices of the company. What can I say: the market understands perfectly well what all this smells like. And it smells like a possible imminent bankruptcy.

The case will not be let down

One gets the impression that now the "Plane" will be squeezed and, possibly, its beneficiaries will be persuaded to sell a significant part of the assets. Put the squeeze on the Plane. It is difficult to predict who they might get to: other large developers like PIK Group are also experiencing problems due to the sagging market. It is possible that the interest in buying an airplane may reappear in the Year of Nisanov.

But it is important to understand something else. According to the authors of the telegram channel "CHEKA-OGPU" https://t.me/rucriminalinfo/4285 (recognized as a foreign agent on the territory of the Russian Federation), alleged criminal cases of fraud against unnamed leaders of the "Airplane" were initiated on the instructions of Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, and are under special control of the leadership of the St. Petersburg Investigative Committee, which was headed by Pavel Vimenets on June 3.. The latter is interesting because it is attributed to the orbit of influence of the former Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, and now the "chief for migrants" in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Andrey Kikot. The figure is more than resourceful and scandalous.

That is, clearly no one is going to "let go" of the "Plane" and put the brakes on the matter. This means that it is very likely that the fate of the alleged "cubby" of Vorobyov and Shoigu is practically a foregone conclusion. At the same time, it is still not clear who will get the 30% share of the deceased Kenin. Perhaps criminal cases will turn into an unexpected result when we find out the name of the new owner of this package.