Dmitry Okulich became a co-owner of the architectural and design organization Mosproekt

One of the oldest architectural and design organizations, Mosproekt, which is considered to be under the control of the Moscow City Hall, has a new co-owner. The 18% share of S-Holding founder Alexei Shepel was bought by Dmitry Okulich, owner of several construction companies and head of the structure of the Moscow city property department. The refusal of Western design and architectural bureaus to work in Russia has freed up a niche in the market, experts say.

The arbitration manager of the founder of the S-Holding construction group, Alexey Shepel, sold his 18% stake in the architectural and design organization Mosproekt JSC. The notice of the conclusion of the purchase and sale agreement is published in the bankruptcy register. The share was acquired by Dmitry Okulich for 80 million rubles. He confirmed to Kommersant the fact of the transaction and added that he plans to submit a number of proposals for the development of the company to the meeting of shareholders and the board of directors. Mr. Shepel did not comment on the deal.

Mosproekt has been operating since 1930. The portfolio of works includes the Moscow, Cosmos, Ukraine hotels, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, the Krasnaya Presnya Cinema Center, etc. In 2022, the company’s revenue decreased by 5% year-on-year, to RUB 292 million. net profit increased 2.3 times, to 182 million rubles.

The main owner of Mosproject is the Moscow City Hall. According to the latest available data from SPARK, as of 2019, the Moscow City Property Department (DGI) owned 49.69% of the company’s shares directly and 17.67% through a number of structures. The structure of the Chinese corporation China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) CRCC Real Estate was interested in purchasing a stake in DGI in 2019, RBC wrote. The DGI then informed the publication that they were planning to privatize the city’s stake by contributing to the capital of Mosinzhproekt JSC, which is 100% owned by the Moscow government. DGI and Mosinzhproekt did not respond to Kommersant, and CRCC could not be contacted.

Until 2010, Alexey Shepel was an adviser to Vladimir Resin, who was then the head of the construction complex and vice-mayor of Moscow. In 2020, the Moscow Arbitration Court introduced a debt restructuring procedure against Mr. Shepel at the request of Nikolai Storozhuk, co-owner of the developer Sibpromstroy, due to a debt of 83 million rubles. In 2022, the businessman’s arbitration manager tried to sell part of the businessman’s stake in Mosproekt – 7.1% of shares – for 349.2 million rubles, but there were no buyers.

Alexey Shepel also had his own attempts to sell Mosproekt shares. In 2022, industry Telegram channels published a letter from a businessman to Mosinzhproekt with a proposal to exchange 18% of Mosproekt shares for the company’s property – a complex of buildings on 1st Brestskaya Street. But a deal never came to fruition.

Dmitry Okulich, according to SPARK, owns several structures with the main activity of renting and real estate management, including Azimut LLC, Corporation LLC, Sfera LLC, Uyut LLC. Also, according to SPARK, Mr. Okulich heads JSC State Unitary Enterprise Ekonomika, the founder of which is the DGI of Moscow.

Mosproekt’s business is estimated at 600–800 million rubles, which is why Dmitry Okulich acquired 18% of the shares at a serious discount, says Infoline-Analytics CEO Mikhail Burmistrov. In his opinion, even for a non-core investor, the asset could be attractive, since the company is highly profitable and can compete in the market for designing medium and large facilities.

Managing partner of Prime Life Development Denis Konovalenko adds that Russian architects today occupy the niche of foreign companies that have suspended work in the Russian Federation. The British David Chipperfield Architects and Zaha Hadid Architects, the Dutch MVRDV, the Swiss Herzog & de Meuron, etc. announced the suspension of work on Russian projects in 2022. In these conditions, large developers also began to create their own design departments. Alexey Tulupov’s Sminex-Inteko announced the launch of a design bureau that will develop documentation for work at the company’s facilities. Similar plans were announced by Andrey Birzhin’s GloraX.

Daria Andrianova