Suleiman Kerimov’s Nafta Ko holding has become the main owner of the legendary Voyentorg department store in central Moscow.
A source in the real estate consulting market said nearly 100 percent of Torgovy Dom TsVUM, or Voyentorg, belongs to Nafta Ko. Alexander Ilyichyov, Nafta Ko’s financial director, confirmed the information, saying the deal was closed last fall.
In October 2008, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service approved a request by Tandum Limited to purchase Fayard Limited, which owned 99.58 percent of Voyentorg. It was not previously known in whose interests Tandum Limited was acting.
Voyentorg previously belonged to Telman Ismailov’s AST Group, which was not immediately available for comment. A co-owner of AST Group, Alexander Ismailov, told Vedomosti in May that his company and Nafta Ko each owned half of Voyentorg.
Ilyichyov said the information was inaccurate.
The consulting firm source noted that all of the AST representatives had left the TsVUM board of directors. On April 4, four of the board’s five seats were taken by Nafta Ko officials: Ilyichyov, his deputy Mikhail Freidkin, head of the legal department Irina Pavlikova and deputy chief executive Alexander Ulyanov.
The chairman was Svyatoslav Golitsyn, who represented AST’s interests. But in second-quarter results published Monday, Golitsyn was listed as having left the chairman post, which was taken by Ilyichyov. The fifth board seat was taken by the deputy head of Nafta Ko’s legal department, Yelena Korovina.
Golitsyn retained his post as chief executive.
Ilyichyov declined to comment on the size of the deal, saying only that it was at the market price. The owner of another project in which Nafta Ko is interested in taking a stake said he thought that the department store went for about $300 million and that the two sides agreed that Kerimov’s company would only enter the project once its reconstruction was completed.
Before the crisis, the property was worth about $650 million, although now it’s probably worth about $300 million to $350 million, said Mikhail Gets, managing partner of Novoye Kachestvo.
The store has a prime location in central Moscow, so space in Voyentorg will always be in demand, Gets said, adding that once the crisis is over the property’s value will only appreciate.
The Voyentorg building on Ulitsa Vozdvizhenka was built from 1910 to 1913 and designed by architect Sergei Zalessky. Following its recent reconstruction, the building has five underground levels and eight stories above ground. Of its 70,000 square meters of space, 22,000 square meters are for offices.
The building also has 4,000 square meters of sales space and 30,000 square meters of parking — room for 540 cars. The reconstruction cost $140 million.
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