AEON Owner on Mirax's Board

AEON Corporation's main owner Roman Trotsenko, who helped Mirax Group refinance its debt, is now on the developer's board of directors, Vedomosti has learned from a source close to the builder's shareholders.

Mikhail Dvorkovich, an adviser to Mirax chairman Sergei Polonsky, said Trotsenko had been on the board as an independent director for more than a year, adding that he was invited as one of the market's top anti-crisis managers.

Trotsenko confirmed to Vedomosti that he was "helping the group get out of a difficult situation." Mirax Group has debts of $550 million, more than half of which is due this year.

Trotsenko has experience in a variety of sectors. His AEON holding includes steamship company Moskovskoye Rechnoye Parakhodstvo, the Novaport airport holding, AEON Development, fiber-optics firm Svyazstroi and Timmerman Yachts. Last fall, Trotsenko was appointed acting head of the state-run United Shipbuilding Corporation.

After joining Mirax, Trotsenko also began to take part in their projects. In May 2009, he purchased from Mirax 75 percent of the 294,000-square-meter Mirax Plaza development in Ukraine. A source close to the company's management said at the time that the deal was worth about $50 million.

He also guaranteed a $52 million loan from the Project Financing Bank, which was used to pay a debt to Alfa Bank. The loan was for half a year at 29 percent interest, and 13,000 square meters in the Federation Tower was used as collateral, sources close to Mirax and one of Mirax's creditors told Vedomosti.

Polonsky told Kommersant in an interview that companies linked to Trotsenko were among the pool of investors planning to buy the company's $241.6 million debt to Credit Suisse. But the loan was eventually sold to Alfa Bank at a 75 percent discount.

Artyom Tsogoyev, managing partner at the Moscow Central Real Estate Exchange, said he did not think Trotsenko was helping out of pure kindness. Perhaps he has some business interests related to the company as a whole or to individual projects, especially since he has his own development interests, Tsogoyev said.

A spot on the board of directors would allow him to keep an eye on the situation at the company, he added.