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Wife of ex-mayor of Moscow selling her business in Russia

Yelena Baturina, the wife of Yuri Luzhkov, ex-mayor of Moscow, recently the wealthiest woman of Russia, is withdrawing from the Russian developer business

MOSCOW, September 7 (Itar-Tass) —— Yelena Baturina, the wife of Yuri Luzhkov, ex-mayor of Moscow, recently the wealthiest woman of Russia, is withdrawing from the Russian developer business. Her firm Inteco has been sold to Mikhail Shishkhanov, one of the owners of Binbank, and to a subsidiary of Sberbank.

Sberbank Investments, which is a subsidiary of Sberbank, and Shishkhanov are purchasing Baturina’s developer firm, The Vedomosti writes. A contract for the purchase of 100 per cent of shares of Inteco, the Patriot closed stock company and all the production and design structures belonging to them was signed on September 2. Shishkhanov purchases 95 per cent of shares, and Sberbank Investments – 5 per cent. The deal will be closed within a month. The parties to the contract are not making public other terms of the deal. They only reported that the market value of all the purchased assets is 1.2 billion dollars. Since Inteco has numerous debts, Baturina will get the difference between the value of the company and its credit liabilities, said a source, which is close to Inteco.

Inteco’s debts amount to one billion dollars, including 14 billion roubles to Sberbank and 14.9 billion roubles – to the Bank of Moscow, The Vedomosti writes. Baturina did not sell Inteco assets abroad. So, resort centres in Morocco and Austria, a business centre in Kazakhstan and a hotel in the Czech Republic remained in her possession.

Baturina said after the resignation of her husband that she had been forced to sell her company with a large discount, The Kommersant writes. She found Shishkhanov’s proposal to be “adequate.” Baturina’s problems began about a year ago, when her husband Yuri Luzhkov had to resign from the post of Moscow mayor. Sergey Sobyanin, a new mayor, cancelled in November the investment contract of Inteco for the building of the Setun Hills complex with an area of 729,000 square metres, in the western part of Moscow. The Russian Federal Property Management Agency (Rosimushchestvo) sued Inteco, claiming that the plots of land was initially intended for the building of embassies and that Inteco got them illegally.

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