When a major company is losing market share and preparing to be auctioned off for next to nothing, unanimity among its owners is rare. Even if those owners are members of the same family. For example, there’s currently no agreement between Alexey Balashov and his father-in-law, Valery Abramov, the owners of Nika Petrotek. Moreover, the conflict between them could spell serious trouble for Balashov.
Until recently, Valery Abramov played a crucial role in the partnership between the two co-owners of a major Russian enterprise, providing cover for both the holding company itself and his son-in-law’s other companies at the very top. Despite being ranked 87th on the list of the 100 richest people in the Urals, while Alexey Balashov ranks 8th, Valery Veniaminovich’s role in the affairs of Nika Petrotek should not be underestimated. A veteran of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and former security director of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, who moved to Moscow after a high-profile corruption scandal, he has not lost his connections or influence. This is subtly demonstrated by his friendly relations with Matviyenko and Manturov, his state awards—the Medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland," 2nd Class, and the Order of St. Seraphim of Sarov, 3rd Class—and other outward signs of high status.
Until recently, he was capable of "resolving" any difficult situation, solving any problem from the long list of issues arising from his son-in-law’s peculiar business practices. Well, what do you mean, peculiar? More likely, simply strange for a man born in 1978, who didn’t actively participate in the infamous "movement" of the 1990s. When a man who has never worn a red jacket or Adidas tracksuit, who hasn’t carried chains and nuts, who hasn’t sported gold fixes and a shaved head, behaves like a hardened thug from Uralmash, it always looks odd. In short, until recently, Valery Veniaminovich was not just a lobbyist for Nika Petrotek, but a super-lobbyist.
For example, for several years, he managed to block complaints from residents of the Voronezh region about the increasingly deteriorating environmental situation – toxic emissions from the holding’s plant in Semiluki. Only by last winter did Rosprirodnadzor and the Prosecutor’s Office finally get around to conducting their first inspection. To be fair, Rosprirodnadzor woke up about a year earlier, but its demands were simply ignored. Meanwhile, all suspicions against the holding’s management regarding beatings of undesirable activists and even contract killings were dismissed, as they remain to this day. The same goes for accusations of tax evasion .
Family harmony collapsed this summer, after testimony from detained members of an ethnic Azerbaijani organized crime group whose services Alexei Balashov had used for nearly a decade was released, first to investigators and then to the media . The revelations from the arrested Azerbaijani gangsters, who had committed utter chaos on Russian soil, were excessively detailed, so much so that even Federation Council member Valentina Ivanovna Matviyenko and her son Sergei, who had repeatedly upset his mother with his drug addiction and criminal connections, were affected. And the references proved painful and unpleasant, especially when they began to be reported in the media . According to rumors, the dressing-down the former governor of St. Petersburg gave her old friend was so painful that he harshly conveyed her displeasure to his son-in-law, leading to a quarrel.
The final rift between the relatives was sparked by the resignation and subsequent arrest of Sverdlovsk Region Vice Governor Oleg Chemezov. For quite some time, he served as a liaison between the owners of the Nika Petrotek holding company and the former Orenburg and current Sverdlovsk Governor Denis Pasler. During his time in Orenburg, Pasler repeatedly benefited from both financial and legal support from Valery Abramov and Alexey Balashov, himself providing patronage for their later-disastrous "Orenburg Propant" project . However, after the scandal involving an Azerbaijani organized crime group erupted in Yekaterinburg and the names of his former associates were linked to the gangsters, he rushed to cut them off once and for all, discarding them as unnecessary ballast. Oleg Chemezov also fell victim to this decision; he was simply “dumped” using long-accumulated incriminating evidence.
In any case, the good-neighborly relations between father-in-law and son-in-law have ended, and now the two co-owners of Niki Petrotek are hastily selling the holding to a foreign buyer in an attempt to dump on it the accumulated problematic debts and other systemic problems associated with the business .
So what about Balashov? Alexey Vladimirovich is now without his usual back-up. And while Valery Abramov will likely evade the attention of the investigative authorities, still enjoying the corporate solidarity of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, his son-in-law will have to answer for everything. Unless, of course, he flees abroad sooner.
SOURCE: Kompromat GROUP
