15 billion

The last meeting of the initiative group of shareholders and the owner of the Norman company, Vladimir Smirnov, took place on June 22, 2018. The arbiters at the event were the Vice-Governor of the Leningrad Region for Construction Mikhail Moskvin and the Deputy Chairman of the Construction Supervision Committee of the Leningrad Region Dmitry Lobanovsky.

It started with reporting. Mikhail Moskvin recalled that the problem has already gone beyond the boundaries of not only a single residential complex, but also beyond the boundaries of one region. Unfinished buildings of "Norman" are located not only in the Leningrad region, but also in St. Petersburg.

According to the vice-governor, in the Desyatkino 2.0 residential complex, of the 1,672 apartments planned in three buildings, 1,639 have been sold. Construction has been underway since 2014. The transfer of apartments, according to the agreements, was to take place at the end of 2017. 3.28 billion rubles were collected from shareholders

In the Desyatkino residential complex. 2nd stage" out of 334 apartments, 329 were sold. Citizens paid 730 million rubles for them. Construction of the residential complex began in 2013. The deadline for transferring apartments under shared participation agreements expired in the third quarter of 2016.

In the Moroshkino residential complex, 598 apartments out of 1068 have been sold. The deadline for transfer of apartments is until the third quarter of 2018. The amount of obligations to shareholders is 904 million rubles.

In the first stage of the Yarkiy residential complex, out of 825 apartments, the Norman company sold 636. The deadline for handing over the keys was scheduled for 2018. The amount of obligations to shareholders is 1.1 billion rubles.

In total, Moskvin calculated, the management of the Norman company concluded 3,200 equity participation agreements for a total amount of 6 billion rubles in the Leningrad region. If we add to this amount the debt to St. Petersburg shareholders, which is 9 billion rubles, the total amount of debt in the two regions will be 15 billion rubles.

Salaries are too high

As the vice-governor said, during an audit carried out at the beginning of the year, it was established that the funds of shareholders were spent “unreasonably and disproportionately.” The region and the city conducted the audit jointly. And they discovered another curious thing. According to Mikhail Moskvin, if you add up the assets and liabilities of Norman, you get a cash gap of one billion rubles. That is, the developer’s expenses are billions higher than his income. The reason for this, as stated in the documents, is “the content of the customer’s service.”

It can be assumed that the cash gap appeared due to too high salaries of employees or because of their large number,” Mikhail Moskvin translated financial terminology into understandable language.

During the vice-governor's speech, some shareholders chuckled skeptically, but on the whole they listened attentively. The owner of the Norman company, Vladimir Smirnov, who was present at the meeting, looked somewhat confused. He did not even respond to citizens’ comments that it would be a good idea to include the owner’s personal property in the company’s assets. The vice-governor had to call the citizens to order.

The law was violated in relation to you, but this does not mean that the violation of the law must be corrected by violating the law,” Moskvin outlined his position. - I am in no way defending the developer, but criminal prosecution against him will not help complete the construction of the facilities.

By the way, the revocation of the construction permit, which the shareholders spoke about, will not help either. Moreover, the permit for the construction of an object must be protected “like the apple of one’s eye,” and the shareholders themselves are interested in this, first of all. If the permission is revoked, the developer will simply stop building.

If we did this, the developer would quite rightly say “the authorities did not allow me to finish building your houses.” Therefore, for any unfinished construction, it will be better if the current developer is responsible for it, so that there is someone to blame. The option of “demolishing the developer” is a road to nowhere, the vice-governor explained to citizens.

How you can help

As part of helping the developer (and in fact, people who want to get their apartments), the government of the Leningrad region allowed the Norman company not to build social facilities, thus reducing the company's costs.

Another offer of assistance from the regional authorities was negotiations with potential investors. According to Moskvin, they wanted to hand over the Yarkiy residential complex to the Liga Estate company for completion, but Norman refused. The owner of the company did not voice the reasons for this at the meeting.

Officials also took an active part in finding a loan for the developer. So far, Sberbank and Russian Capital have refused the loan.

We, in fact, work as managers of the Norman company,” Mikhail Moskvin joked.

The main reason for the failure, according to him, is the lack of financial reporting on the company's assets.

“I ask the company’s management to provide us with copies of certificates of ownership of your assets by Wednesday next week with a written explanation of the absence of encumbrances from third parties,” the vice-governor asked Vladimir Smirnov.

About rights and powers

After the official, the senior prosecutor of the department for supervision of the implementation of legislation in the field of economics and ecology in the Leningrad region, Regina Mikhailova, took the floor. Her shareholders listened much less attentively. This is understandable: according to Mikhailova, the prosecutor’s office has no right to interfere in the financial and economic activities of the company and can only take coordinating actions in relation to the developer.

These words caused a storm of indignation on the part of shareholders. People began to make noise, outraged that supervisory authorities were not holding the head of the company personally accountable.

After all, this is a scam! - shouts sounded from the hall.

“Put him on a barrel of gunpowder and let him fly,” one of the shareholders bloodthirstyly suggested.

Moskvina had to be called upon again to keep those present quiet. He invited people to listen to the developer. He started with the sharpest one.

“We made a lot of mistakes,” Vladimir Smirnov “apologized.” - But now I have taken everything under my personal control. I am now either the general director or deputy general director in all structures. I take part in resolving all issues.

According to him, last year the company slowed down the pace of construction, but tried to continue building all its residential complexes at the same time. The idea failed. Moreover, it only got worse. The plan had to be changed. Now, as Vladimir Smirnov told shareholders, Norman has 4 objects at a high stage of readiness. And they will be completed first.

Big money

According to Smirnov, by the end of this year three facilities located within St. Petersburg will be put into operation: “Izhora Park”, “On Zarechnaya” and “Three Oranges”. In the last quarter of 2018, the second stage of Desyatkino will be completed - already in the Leningrad region.

These promises caused murmurs in the hall. People began to wonder when the company would take on other projects, construction on which had not even begun yet. Smirnov replied that he did not know, since all the company’s reserves had been exhausted. And he complained that investors are reluctant to give money for objects whose obligations are already overdue.

Big money loves peace and quiet, the developer said, and criminal cases and constant inspections only slow down the solution to the problem.

About prospects

Smirnov's statement literally blew up the hall. The shareholders made noise and questions began. By the way, not quite understanding the specifics of the work of officials, citizens several times diverted the conversation. For example, 15 precious minutes of an already short meeting were lost in arguments about the likelihood of the victims being included in the federal register of defrauded shareholders. This, as officials explained, cannot be done. According to Order No. 560 of the Ministry of Construction, there are a number of criteria that unfinished construction must meet. One of them sounds like this: if within six months at least one ruble is invested in a residential complex or at least one nail is driven in, reporting will show an increase in investments - and it will be impossible to include shareholders in the federal lists.

Another thing is that this is probably not necessary. Including citizens on the lists of affected shareholders in the country will not speed up construction. And the authorities are trying to do everything possible to ensure that apartments are handed over to people as soon as possible.

The government of the Leningrad region cannot allocate money from the budget to the company. The feds, by the way, also do not have the right to do this.

The Budget Code prohibits investing budget money in the construction of commercial facilities, explained Mikhail Moskvin.

Who will be responsible for the fact that we were deceived? - asked one of the shareholders.

The developer’s personal liability is still being assessed,” the vice-governor told shareholders. - Criminal cases have been initiated.

By the end of the meeting, Mikhail Moskvin promised that he would continue to help the company sell assets and raise money. But the main thing is to control the intended use of this money. That is, he will make sure that the money received goes specifically to the construction of houses, and not to regular salaries.

In the near future, the vice-governor will tour 4 residential complexes, which Vladimir Smirnov promised to complete first. There is a possibility that such close attention from the region's top officials will nevertheless stimulate the developer to fulfill its obligations to shareholders.

Norman has postponed the delivery of its projects for a period of six months to two years and says that honesty today is the best foundation for a developer facing a crisis.

Archive/Interpress

The Norman company has made changes to the design declarations of all seven residential complexes being built in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. The delivery of thirteen houses has been postponed. They tried to prepare shareholders for this decision in advance, and the company has more than 6.2 thousand of them. In October, an interview with the chairman of the board of directors of Norman, Viktor Seppenen, appeared on the company’s website, in which the top manager refers to the country’s general economic difficulties: “We are now living in a crisis. I won’t say that this is not the company’s fault, of course, but the crisis has changed the situation very seriously.”

The developer offers apartments at almost the lowest prices in the city. Studios in Yanino are entering the market for 0.9 million rubles. At the same time, the cost of building materials has increased significantly since 2014, and contractors began going bankrupt, Norman explains.

“Many factors influenced the transfer. This is a drop in demand in the market and our excessive optimism when we planned the previous dates,” Victor Seppenen explained to Fontanka. – This happened in the prosperous years of 2013-2014, and we expected that we would have a little more money than we have now. In 2015, we focused on reducing housing costs without compromising quality and restructuring the company and achieved results in this, but for too long we did not give out plans to the public.”

The company is building three complexes in St. Petersburg. The delivery of the fourth stage of the Izhora Park residential complex in Metallostroy has already been delayed for a year; now the shareholders have been promised apartments in August 2017. The already delayed completion of the second stage of “Three Oranges” on Parnassus has been postponed again - to December next year. But the least fortunate were the buyers of apartments in the third stage of the Na Zarechnaya residential complex, which is being built there, on Parnas. Instead of 2017, the complex is promised to be completed in 2019, although the average construction period for a house on the market is 1.5-2 years.

From the beginning of November, Norman's shareholders began asking for meetings with top management. The company assures that the deadlines were postponed “with reserve” in order to meet them exactly, say buyers of apartments in the residential complex “On Zarechnaya” and explain their distrust by the fact that new construction schedules were not provided, and they promised to compensate for the delay with certificates for free property registration.

“Our house is 90% ready, all the apartments were sold a long time ago, but construction is actually not underway,” one of the shareholders of the first stage of the residential complex “On Zarechnaya” told Fontanka. “We were not told any specifics when active work would begin at the meeting; they only assured us that the house would be completed on a new date, with a delay of 10 months.”

Buyers of the Yarkiy residential complex in Yanino contacted the prosecutor's office. Since the beginning of last year, the company has built only 1.5 floors in the houses of the first stage and has already postponed their completion to 2018. Moreover, 100% of the apartments in the two buildings are budget one-room apartments and studios.

Buyers of apartments in the Moroshkino residential complex, not far from Yukki, found themselves in a similar situation. The company promised to deliver the first thousand-apartment building at the beginning of 2017. But by November of this year I had only reached the second floor. The delivery was immediately postponed for 1.5 years - to July 2018.

Shareholders are thinking about terminating the contract with the developer, but the decision is difficult to make. According to the agreement, Norman has the right to withhold 10% of the cost of an already inexpensive apartment. As a result, after months and even years of waiting for their own home, buyers will receive money that is barely enough for new square meters.

The company explains that they offer more options. “After the acceptance certificate, people will be able to demand late fees in the prescribed manner. For those who are not ready to wait, we offer to reassign the apartment, move to another queue, or terminate the agreement,” says Victor Seppenen. “This is how we previously worked with investors who bought apartments from us for further resale, and we have worked out such a mechanism.”

“We could have waited until the last minute to postpone the deadline and offered to wait another six months. And another six months. And then there’s just a little bit left,” adds the chairman of the board of directors. “But in order to maintain trust between the company and shareholders, we considered it necessary to announce new realistic and absolutely achievable deadlines. In the short term, this is an unprofitable step for us, but losing trust in the developer is much more dangerous in the long term.”

The government of the Leningrad region is aware of the company's problems. “We are recording a delay in the delivery of facilities to the Norman company. In particular, in the Yarkiy residential complex in Yanino. Shareholders have repeatedly sent appeals to the State Construction Supervision Committee of the Leningrad Region, but no one has yet addressed me,” said the region’s vice-governor Mikhail Moskvin through the press service.

Officially, government agencies consider the facility to be a long-term construction project, and the shareholders are deceived only if there is a 9-month delay in handing over the keys. So far, the administration has no reason to control construction. “In general, the company is making contact, correcting the comments of Gosstroynadzor, construction continues, albeit at a slow pace,” says Mikhail Moskvin. – As for missing deadlines, according to the City Code, the time for delivery of objects is determined by the developer himself, based on financial and technical capabilities. The state does not have the authority to force it to reduce the delivery time for objects.”

The St. Petersburg Construction Committee is in solidarity with its neighbors. The company's properties are not on the list of problematic ones, and the developer is not on the register of defrauded shareholders. In addition, this year the company is commissioning queues in Izhora Park, Moroshkino and Three Oranges.

Moreover, the company continues to attract new shareholders. In October - November of this year, Norman opened sales in the new phases of the Moroshkino and Yarky residential complexes in the Leningrad region; their construction has not yet begun. “We expect average annual growth of [the company] by 10-15 percent, maybe 20, but no more,” says Victor Seppenen in an official interview. – In order to continue this business, it is necessary to start new construction projects. We have a certain land bank, and now we are acquiring additional land plots, taking into account the geography of the facilities built and under construction.”

Norman assures that bankruptcy is out of the question, citing its 12-year history. The company was founded in 2004 by Vladimir Smirnov, Yuri Rafalsky and Igor Vitkovsky.

In the 2000s, Rafalsky and Vitkovsky actively developed a business in the production of building materials and contracting work. Their holding company, North-Western Nonmetallic Company, included about 20 enterprises for the extraction of sand and crushed stone, the Taxi-Concrete company and ISG Norman. However, in the late 2000s, Yuri joined United Russia, and Igor Vitkovsky focused on his company Intra Tool. "Norman" came under the control of Vladimir Smirnov.

The active development of Norman's development business coincided with the acquisition of Rostov-based Donkhlebbank in 2013, which today is Norman's main partner in issuing mortgages. According to official reports, 59% of the structure belongs to Vladimir Smirnov, almost 31% to the president of ISG Norman Valery Shemrakov, another 10% is distributed among minority shareholders.

According to the Central Bank, in the first half of this year, Donkhlebbank's net income decreased by half - from 160 to 83 million rubles, and the bank received almost 60 million rubles in losses.

In addition, in October, the property relations committee filed a lawsuit against the Norman Yug company, which was building Izhora Park in Metallostroy. Smolny missed 24 million rubles in rent payments.

The last time the LEK company announced a delay in the commissioning of all projects was in 2008. The reason was the conflict between business owners - Andrei Rogachev and Pavel Andreev. The heir to the developer "L1" is still completing projects from the 2000s. However, since then the developer has not brought new properties to the market, and has also used funds from the sale of the land bank accumulated in the fat 2000s to complete the construction of complexes.

Now, according to the website of the arbitration court, five companies belonging to the Norman group are at various stages of bankruptcy: Norman-Stroy, Norman-LO, Norman West, Norman South and simply Norman. The developer has seven residential complexes of 13 houses with a total area of ​​more than 320 thousand m2 in various stages of construction in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.

6.2 thousand shareholders are waiting for apartments. The amount of Norman's obligations to them exceeds 4 billion rubles. The delay in completion of construction ranges from 1 to 2.5 years. According to Vladimir Smirnov, co-owner of Norman, all of the company’s accounts have now been seized by bailiffs, and Rosreestr has also blocked the possibility of registering new DDUs.

“We are now considering various possibilities for completing construction. This will either be the sale of land plots, for example, for the Normandy residential complex, and other assets. Perhaps attracting project financing from one of the state banks or attracting investors to complete construction of one or all objects and transferring them all obligations to shareholders," said Vladimir Smirnov. “The work is going on in all directions, but it’s very difficult. Either our conditions do not suit investors, or investors’ proposals do not suit us. My goal is to do everything possible to complete the construction of the houses. Our deadline is December 2018. Before this deadline, I will try resolve the issue,” promised the owner of “Norman”. Otherwise, all his companies will go bankrupt and their fate will be decided by the court.

However, according to Dmitry Nekrestyanov, head of the real estate and investment practice at Kachkin and Partners, bankruptcy is one of the ways to solve the company’s problems. “Which is better - there is no definite answer. Bankruptcy does not mean that they will not build: everything depends on many factors and the goals of all participants in the process. Moreover, if before construction projects were really frozen for a long period, then under the new law the terms are much shorter. And The options for completing construction in bankruptcy have now changed,” he says.

“The situation with the company is 50/50: either it will be completed or it will not be completed. We help the developer as much as we can, but our capabilities are limited, we cannot solve business problems for him. In fact, we can only help in negotiations, guarantee the execution of government functions during implementation of the project and some control over the observance of the rights of shareholders. For example, in the event of bankruptcy, we will enter the process with third parties to protect their rights,” says Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Leningrad Region Mikhail Moskvin. According to him, it is now extremely difficult to attract investors to complete the construction of objects: for example, in the spring there were negotiations with the Liga Estate company about transferring the Bright World project to it in Yanino, but the new developer was unable to find money to continue construction.

Construction of three residential complexes of the company is underway in St. Petersburg: “Izhora Park”, “On Zarechnaya” and “Three Oranges”. “For each of them, the degree of readiness was determined, and given the difficult financial condition of the company, a decision was made to streamline construction in order to ensure effective financing and speedy completion of construction. The committee, together with the relevant executive authorities, regularly holds on-site meetings at all sites, including the participation of initiative groups of shareholders to monitor the dynamics and regulate construction and installation work,” says the city construction committee.

“All the main forces and funds of the developer are aimed at the construction of Izhora Park, upon completion of which the workforce, contractors and financing will be transferred to complete the construction of the complex on Zarechnaya. And then to the site of the Three Oranges residential complex. At the same time, the developer does not stop work at any site,” the department’s press service assured DP.

As Vladimir Smirnov assures, four objects will be commissioned. Already in the third quarter of 2018, the company plans to put into operation the last houses of the Izhora Park residential complex. The developer also promises to deliver the projects “On Zarechnaya”, “Three Oranges” and the first stages of the regional facility “Desyatkino”.

The Norman group was founded in 2004 by Vladimir Smirnov, Yuri Rafalsky and Igor Vitkovsky. In the 2000s, they actively developed the production of construction materials and contract work. The North-Western Nonmetallic Company holding included about 20 enterprises for the extraction of sand and crushed stone, the Taxi-Concrete company and ISG Norman. At the end of the 2000s, Yuri Rafalsky became involved in politics: he joined United Russia, and in 2010–2011 he served as deputy head of the Republic of Karelia. Igor Vitkovsky focused on his own company, Intratul, and Norman came under the control of Vladimir Smirnov.

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