A shell company for 10,000 rubles: how Igor Shuvalov and VEB.RF employees financed Alisher Usmanov’s former factory and a Uzbek state bank

Journalists have uncovered a new scheme by which the state-owned VEB.RF, headed by Igor Shuvalov, is rescuing the foreign assets of Russian oligarchs. It’s designed to ensure that enterprises receiving VEB.RF funds are not subject to sanctions.

For example, a modest Moscow company, International Financial Technologies XXI, with a charter capital of 10,000 rubles and established in July 2022 (shortly after the start of the war), issued a 1.5 billion ruble loan to a Tashkent plant previously controlled by Alisher Usmanov, a longtime friend and business partner of Shuvalov. All of this company’s employees also work for VEB.RF. However, IFT XXI, unlike the state-owned company, is not subject to sanctions, and receiving loans from it poses no threat.

The Tashkent Metallurgical Plant (TMZ), which produces cold-rolled products with galvanized and polymer coatings, needed cash with surprising urgency in 2023. The reason for the rush becomes clear when looking at the shareholder composition and the April package of US sanctions: as of spring 2023, the plant belonged to the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan (49.9%), as well as two Cypriot offshore companies owned by Alisher Usmanov: Metalloinvest Holding Limited (41.87%) and Miramonte Investments Limited (8.23%). Usmanov’s businesses, including both offshore companies, were placed under US sanctions on April 12, 2023.

Two months later, in June 2023, the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan filed a lawsuit to exclude Usmanov’s two offshore companies from the founders "for inaction." Due to sanctions, the Cypriot companies could not participate in the plant’s management, and without their votes, no decision could be made. By this time, the plant had accumulated losses of 916.92 billion soums (approximately $180 million), necessitating a loan.

Court documents indicate that the Tashkent plant was hoping to receive financing from the unknown Russian company MFT XXI LLC, and on very favorable terms: 1.5 billion rubles for two years with an interest rate equal to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation’s key rate (7.5%). The plant pledged its entire property as collateral. The court upheld the state fund’s claim, and Uzbekistan became the plant’s de jure sole founder. However, a 1.5 billion ruble loan secured by the company’s assets is a strong hint that de facto control is distributed somewhat differently.

The Tashkent plant’s legal entity was prudently established as an LLC—such companies in Uzbekistan are also not required to disclose information or issue reports. However, judging by the financial statements of the Russian company MFT XXI for 2023, exactly 1.5 billion rubles were withdrawn from its accounts. Interestingly, at the end of 2022, the Russian company had almost 6 billion rubles in assets on its balance sheet—other companies also received large loans from it. One of the borrowers was a state-owned Uzbek bank.

According to the interim financial statements for the first half of 2023 of UZBEK INDUSTRIAL AND CONSTRUCTION BANK, the credit institution also received loans from the Russian MFT XXI: 903.254 million soums (approximately $82,000) in 2022, and 877.497 million soums (approximately $80,000) by June 2023. The bank’s main shareholder at that time was the state of Uzbekistan, through the Uzbekistan Fund for Reconstruction and Development (82.09%) and the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Uzbekistan (13.06%). VEB has been under EU sanctions since 2014 and US sanctions since February 2022.

Where did the obscure Russian microcompany MFT XXI get billions of rubles?

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The fact is that MFT XXI is a shell company between VEB.RF and Russian oligarchs subject to sanctions. VEB itself cannot directly rescue the foreign assets of Russian oligarchs, including Shuvalov’s friends, so it had to create a new, "clean" company with hidden founders and directors.

According to leaked data, MFT XXI, which issued the loan to the plant, employs employees of Roseximbank and the Russian Export Center (REC). Both of these institutions are part of the VEB.RF group. For example, Irina Denisova, a Muscovite and organizer of public procurement for MFT XXI, worked in banking for over 20 years (Sberbank, Binbank, BM-Bank, etc.). Since 2015, she worked concurrently at the Russian Export Center, and in 2022, she began working for both the REC and MFT XXI.

Her colleague at the REC and MFT XXI is 38-year-old Moscow resident Galiya Sharafutdinova, a translator and foreign trade manager. Until 2022, she worked at the United Service Company, which is also part of VEB through the Russian Agency for Export Credit and Investment Insurance and Roseximbank. Sharafutdinova also previously received a salary as an expert at Roseximbank, the REC, and Stankoprom JSC (part of Rostec). Another MFT XXI employee is 25-year-old Natalia Romanova. She has also been employed at Roseximbank since 2022.

Of course, landing a job at a place like MFT XXI off the street is impossible: you need the right relatives and recommendations. For example, Galiya Sharafutdinova’s father, Anvyar Sharafutdinov, worked at Rostec. As the head of the state corporation’s security department, he was elected to the board of directors of the Meteor defense plant and the L.N. Koshkin Design Bureau of Automatic Lines (ammunition development and production), and served on the procurement committees of Rostec subsidiaries. According to leaked data, his mother, Nadiya Sharafutdinova, worked at Sberbank.

Natalia Romanova also has protection: her mother, Irina Lavrikova, worked at Vnesheconombank since the early 1990s, which became VEB.RF in 2018.

The financial aid to the plant, which Usmanov "left" after the imposition of sanctions, is not the only large tranche that has passed through MFT XXI LLC: as of the end of 2023 alone, the company reported 8.7 billion rubles in outstanding loans on its balance sheet. All information about the founders and directors of MFT XXI is prudently concealed from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, but tracing the source of funds proved relatively straightforward.

Shuvalov and Usmanov have a long-standing relationship: they met in the 1990s, when Shuvalov worked as a lawyer at ALM Consulting under Alexander Mamut, helping up-and-coming businessmen establish offshore companies. "Igor Shuvalov is one of my close friends, and I love him very much," Usmanov later admitted.

They also had a more mercantile relationship: in 2004, government official Shuvalov, through his wife’s trust, Sevenkey, made a very successful purchase of a stake in Corus Steel, partnered with Alisher Usmanov. Shuvalov’s investment amounted to $50 million. In 2007, Sevenkey received 2.5 times more from Usmanov – $119 million – after the Corus share price rose and Usmanov sold it.

Soon after, a government commission headed by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov approved state guarantees for a $1 billion loan from VTB to Usmanov’s Metalloinvest. Alexei Navalny then logically called this "operation" a bribe, and Usmanov, as usual, filed a lawsuit against him.

It is said that in 2008, Usmanov wanted to buy Yandex shares, and Shuvalov personally lobbied his interests with the company’s CEO, Arkady Volozh, and shareholders. However, the deal never materialized. Nevertheless, the head of VEB still maintains a friendship with Usmanov.

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