NeftAlmazInvest Faces Takeover by Parent

The parent company of NeftAlmazInvest is on the verge of taking control of the troubled voucher-investment fund, one of the founders of the company said Thursday.The transaction involves complex maneuvers in Margo Bank, a key shareholder in Denta-Invest which in turn is the parent company of NeftAlmazInvest.El Samuel Hussein Osman Mansour said Denta-Invest, in which he is a major holder, will pay investors about 6.1 billion rubles ($312 million) in vouchers and about 7.2 billion rubles in cash. The funds are designed to compensate investors for lack of dividends because NeftAlmazInvest's license has been withdrawn due to missing funds and vouchers.Mansour, together with Tesfaye Sintaye, NeftAlmazInvest's chairman, is one of the founders of Denta-Invest. Mansour, a Sudanese citizen, also said he owns 10 percent of NeftAlmazInvest, one of Russia's largest investment funds."We are doing everything to renew the fund's license, because NeftAlmazInvest is very profitable," he said. Mansour said he has reached an agreement from Anatoly Chubais, head of the State Property Committee that governs privatization in Russia, and he is in the final stages of working out technical details of the takeover. Chubais announced recently that Margo Bank is ready to pay the funds to NeftAlmazInvest shareholders. The public prosecutor's office charged NeftAlmazInvest last March with illegally floating 11 billion shares and misappropriating 570,000 privatization vouchers. The State Property Committee revoked the license of the fund and Sintaye was charged with swindling and was arrested.But Mansour said Margo Bank considers the accusation of floating illegal shares false. He also said the 570,000 vouchers were not misappropriated but were transferred to Denta-Invest. However, NeftAlmazInvest representatives said in March that the missing vouchers had been handed over to an unidentified foreign firm under a trust agreement.Mansour said the fund used individual vouchers entrusted to it to invest in such major Russian companies as the Tobolsk oil-chemical factory, the Krasny Oktyabr candy factory, the TsUM supermarket, ZiL, Russia's second biggest automaker, the Russian Tractor factory and many others."Anyone in our shoes would have done this. Yes, we want to take control of the fund," he said.Margo Bank was set up in 1992 by Sintaye, Mansour, a Moslem, and two of his wives.Alexander Kochergin, senior investigator of the Moscow investigation department, said Mansour was involved in several criminal cases, including nonpayment of $7,000 for arms he bought for sheiks in the United Arab Emirates. He has yet to come to trial. Other charges including bribery and selling pornography have been dropped.Kochergin said Sintaye, an exile from Ethiopia, was charged with nonpayment of 580 million rubles to the Russian Rosprodopttorg trading company. He said Sintaye, who established 17 firms in Russia, promised Rosprodopttorg to sell sugar and received payment, but did not deliver the shipment. The State Arbitration Court, which investigated the case, discovered that the money paid to Sintaye had been withdrawn from his bank account.Kochergin said the money was transferred to two foreign banks, one of which is "a solid Western bank" with representation in Moscow. He declined to name the bank.