Rusnano, Chubais, default, bankrupt
Do you remember how it all started
We still remember how this nano-boom happened in Russia, and we had a nano-wash and a nano-haircut, and someone had to do nanotechnology. Many even breathed a sigh of relief when it became known that Anatoly Chubais would be involved in these games. We decided that it’s good that the privatizer was so employed, there will be less harm.
However, if not direct harm, then direct losses began almost immediately, and everyone who was not indifferent wrote about this. Voennoye Obozreniye journalists noted on the topic with enviable regularity, there were almost two dozen publications, including from the authors (see, for example How much are the kilowatts of Chubais).
When the crisis hit, there were sanctions and two devaluations of the ruble, most of us got nano-salaries instead of nanocenes. A.B. As a result, Chubais ruled for a decade and a half at Rusnano, among other things, one of the state corporations on which the construction of “developed capitalism” is based in our country.
He and his team, which included several more heroes of privatization, reformed his office a couple of times, having successfully mastered not only the initial 130 billion budget rubles, but also subsequent receipts. They are also multibillion and, again, from the treasury, that is, from the pockets of citizens.
The state corporation "Rusnano", unlike corporations in other spheres of the economy, also not always and not in all effective, was immediately designated as an investment one. The right (even the obligation) to spend budget funds was written down directly in its charter. However, this also assumes that funds should be spent at least with the prospect of a return.
But, according to the reports of Chubais himself, the return on even the most effective projects could not be compared with the amount of budgetary investments. If tens and even hundreds of billions were invested in nanoprojects, the profits were usually calculated in tens or hundreds of millions of rubles. And even then - only for the most successful projects.
And there were not so many successful projects for all the years of Rusnano's existence, which was coolly admitted in the Chubais structure itself. But there were so many failures in the corporation's account that they simply ceased to be counted.
The main thing is to report on time
In general, over a decade and a half, Rusnano has actually been honored with only two dozen really large projects. But today, three of them have already gone bankrupt, another nine or ten are operating at a loss, and the profits of the rest can be called either ridiculous or scanty.
All this did not prevent the incomparable head of Rusnano from playing publicly and brightly with the statements of the state corporation. But only at first - after the first years of its operation, Chubais was not at all shy about talking about losses, losses and difficulties.
This was always done with one goal - to knock out budget money for Rusnano. More and more, for the sake of which it is necessary to boldly, but boringly and thoroughly, to announce the colossal losses of the state corporation. When this stopped working, and the Accounts Chamber in Rusnano, as they say, was hammered a long time ago, unexpectedly serious problems arose with the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, but about them a little later.
Chubais himself immediately famously reported to the president about his successes (Plus or Minus Chubais). However, the brilliant reporting data turned out to be so dubious that Chubais & Co. had to turn the state corporation in the direction of financial manipulation, more like fraud.
Photo: TV channel "Tsargrad"
Well-known economist Andrei Bunich spoke very aptly about them (pictured):
“The former state corporation just turned into a financial company, which, earning on financial flows, acquired a lot of things. And now, if all this could be privatized, then the ends in the water - it would be impossible to rewind. It is impossible to check, to see what happened, how it happened that such a company simply exists for years in a privileged position, twists a lot of money. "
First calls
In fact, even when they were just building an office for Chubais on 50-letiya Oktyabrya Avenue in the capital, which is more modest than in Skolkovo, inquisitive experts warned that effective managers would either ruin everything or plunder everything. Or both together.
Particularly harsh conclusions regarding the primary accumulation of capital in the new state corporation were then noted by the auditors of the Accounts Chamber. But, as was the case with the privatization and the reform of RAO UES, people from Sergei Stepashin's cohort were listened to, and their materials were sent under the rug.
And this, despite the fact that the materials of the JV RF in relation to the management of the corporation included, for example, the following:
- allows transactions with interested companies;
- finances, within the framework of nanotechnology, Russian and foreign companies in a pre-bankruptcy state;
- implements projects that are not related to nanotechnology or have negative expert opinions.
- finances, within the framework of nanotechnology, Russian and foreign companies in a pre-bankruptcy state;
- implements projects that are not related to nanotechnology or have negative expert opinions.
No one stubbornly wanted to see criminality, and only slightly veiled, in the actions of nanotechnologists. The followers of S.V. Stepashin at the post of chairman of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation - Tatyana Golikova and Alexey Kudrin - the activity of auditors in relation to Rusnano has sharply decreased. It was mainly about checking specific projects.
And new trends
Nevertheless, now it is in the bins of the Accounts Chamber that information can be found that state support for the corporation has exceeded the amount of 404 billion rubles. This is during the operation of Rusnano, and although it is, alas, not indicated for sure, it is clear that the data is quite fresh.
The fact is that since 2018, after a very harsh analysis of its flights by the Prosecutor General's Office, which challenged the creation of the dedicated Management Company Rusnano, the corporation no longer lived on budget funds. And compared to the amount of 147 billion rubles, which appeared in the materials of the prosecutors, this is almost three times more.
Of these hundreds of billions, direct support from the budget accounts for only 32,7%, another 62,3% - on the very same state guarantees, and a modest 5% - to help the subsidiary Fund for Infrastructure and Educational Programs, created by the Rusnano Corporation at the start of its activities ...
Nearly two-thirds, which come from government guarantees, show that the refusal of government funding has changed little in the business approach to the Chubais & Co. case. Moreover, Rusnano began to take on investments much more than with direct government investments. To borrow money, by all indications, not really expecting to repay this debt later.
Unsinkable?
Now, as promised - about the Prosecutor General's Office.
She, we repeat, two years ago actually prevented the withdrawal of Rusnano from state control by creating a separate management company, Rusnano Management Company. With substantial stakes in Chubais and his associates in the fight, with better salaries than just in a corporation, although there the management had them, as they say, to the envy of enemies.
The whole combination boiled down to the privatization of the Rusnano Criminal Code - the corporation itself, albeit unprofitable, did not bother the prosecutors. The main thing is that this, even if the state retained a 100% stake, could become the first step towards taking the big Rusnano out of state control.
Fortunately, the feint with the Criminal Code failed, one of the consequences of which was Chubais's strange exodus from Rusnano, by the way, still legally vague, although Sergei Kulikov has already been recorded as the chairman of the board of the corporation.
And also - and activation of "Rusnano" in the bond market. What happened to them, and how they put the state corporation on the brink of bankruptcy, is quite worthy of a separate analytical review.
Well, as a kind of cherry on the cake, let us recall one more thing.
In the fall of 2019, when less than a year had passed since Rusnano was cut off from budget funding, its head tried to find a new reliable source of funds. Even before the pandemic and the current "green hysteria", Chubais decided to play beautifully as an "ecologist" and proposed introducing a carbon tax in Russia (Where Chubais, there are requisitions).
Today this is five percent for excess CO2 emissions - a globally recognized norm, but then, with the proceeds, our reformer, adored by the West, wanted to develop what?
Yes, the very advanced technologies that should be dealt with at Rusnano and Skolkovo.
It's good that it didn't work then, but now it is unlikely to work at all.
Here is the answer to the "why" question from our subheading. Among other things, we do not exclude it because the time has come to deal seriously with the unsinkable privatizer and reformer.
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