State-run VTB bank has filed a lawsuit in Moscow’s Arbitration Court against Elena Baturina’s Inteco firm for non-payment of 870.6m roubles ($30.6m) of duties for the loan, Sintez LLC and Ministry of Finance being the third party in the suit. The suit was put on the court’s data base on 20 June. A spokesman of the bank said that the loan to Bautina’s company had been approved on 1 December 2009, but in the second half of 2011 Inteco stopped paying the debtor’s duties. A spokesman of Inteco said that the company met its money obligations and sorted out emerging difficulties with the creditors.    

According to the Russian Mafia (rumafia.com), Inteco’s total liabilities by December 2010 amounted to 30.9b roubles ($1.1b). VTB’s loan to Inteco for day-to-day operational activities was secured by the guarantee of the finance ministry. Baturina’s company owes about 1.5b roubles ($53m) to VTB. Until now the company has had no difficulties in clearing off the liabilities. In summer 2009 Elena Baturina repaid a number of credits by selling her stakes in Gazprom, Sberbank and Rosneft, as well as 58 hectares of land in the west of Moscow.

In November 2010 VTB was reported to lay claim to Inteco – after resignation of Yury Luzhkov Baturina was expected to sell her business. She told Oleg Tinkoff in an interview in February 2011 that “VTB gave a try to seize Inteco”. “It is clear why banks took interest [in buying Inteco]. They issued a lot of loans, guaranteed by absolutely unreliable companies. Now they realise that they will not get their money back and have to find out how to make up for the losses, say, by buying something expensive at the cheap prise,” Baturina said.

Inteco sold its share in City Palace (Evolution Tower) skyscraper to Viktor Rashnikov at the end of 2010. It emerged this summer that the Inteco’s cement plants will be sold to Lev Kvetnoy, owner of Novorostsement.