The head of the IFC was replaced amid the decision of the Red Wings to enter the cargo market

As it became known to Kommersant, the management of the leasing company of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) AO IFC, which is engaged in the restoration and supply of Tu-204/214 and Il aircraft, has changed leadership. Sergei Turkin’s place will be taken by Mikhail Podkhvatilin, general director of VSP-Leasing, the beneficiary of which is a member of the board of directors of UAC and Red Wings (owned by IFC) Boris Aleshin. The reshuffle took place against the backdrop of IFC’s refusal to transfer two Il-96s to Alexei Isaikin’s AirBridgeCargo airline, which had already paid insurance deposits for them. According to Kommersant’s information, the planes will be handed over to Mr. Aleshin’s Sky Gates airline, which Red Wings plans to acquire.

According to Kommersant, last week Sergey Turkin left the post of CEO of the leasing company JSC IFC (part of UAC), which he had held since 2019. Mikhail Podkhvatilin, General Director of VSP-Leasing, will take his place. VSP-Leasing, according to SPARK, is owned by Boris Alyoshin, Advisor to the General Director of UAC for Science and member of the Board of Directors of Red Wings.

Mr. Turkin confirmed to Kommersant the information about his departure, but refrained from giving details.

The UAC confirmed the appointment of Mr. Podkhvatilin, noting his 15-year experience in the field of “aircraft leasing, including in senior positions at STLC and at the head of a number of leasing companies.” The UAC added that the new leader will face “the tasks of improving the efficiency of the IFC, improving interaction with suppliers and operators of Russian-made passenger and cargo aircraft, and increasing the leasing portfolio of domestic aircraft.”

Kommersant’s interlocutor in the aviation industry clarified that the reasons for the appointment were an attempt to “activate the leasing component of the IFC, previously focused on restoring aircraft.”

But, according to another interlocutor of Kommersant in the industry, it’s too early to talk about “expanding leasing tasks”: new Tu-214 aircraft will be delivered to Aeroflot through another lessor, Aviakapital-Service, which is part of Rostec. Some sources also note that there were no claims against Sergei Turkin before. According to SPARK, the losses of the enterprise decreased with him: if in 2019 they amounted to 2.1 billion rubles, and in 2020 – 4 billion rubles, then in 2022 the company received a small profit in the amount of 157 million rubles.

The UAC agreed that Sergey Turkin “transferred the company in a much better condition than it was at the time of his appointment in 2019.” “Thanks to the active assistance of shareholders, relations with many creditors were settled by paying off and restructuring debts, the threat of bankruptcy of the company was removed, and it was possible to preserve assets that have now become extremely in demand,” they added. The corporation recalled that the state allocated 15 billion rubles in 2022. to restore the airworthiness of 11 aircraft – Tu-204/214, Il-96 and An-124. Under Sergey Turkin, work was organized at several production sites, a significant number of aircraft components were repaired and purchased, the UAC added.

Now, according to Kommersant, seven Tu aircraft remain on the balance sheet of IFC, most of which are intended for Red Wings, which is part of Rostec through IFC.

According to Kommersant, an EU lessor was interested in the An-124 aircraft until 2022 in order to restore it together with Ukrainian airlines, then these negotiations were frozen. Two more Il-96-400T planes were going to be leased by AirBridgeCargo (part of Volga-Dnepr) Alexey Isaikin. According to Kommersant’s sources, the company managed to make insurance deposits for the planes. But IFC terminated the agreement and returned the advances.

According to Kommersant’s information, the planes will be transferred to the Sky Gates airline, the beneficiary of which is Boris Aleshin. Mr. Aleshin is also on the board of directors of the airport operator Zhukovsky Ramport Aero (in 2018 he acquired 22.5% of its shares). According to Kommersant, Red Wings, now led by Yevgeny Solodilin, who until July 2022 headed Zhukovsky Airport, plans to acquire a Sky Gates air operator certificate. Now Sky Gates has only one Il-76 left. Mr. Solodilin said on July 6 that Red Wings intends to acquire a “large” cargo airline. In this regard, some of Kommersant’s interlocutors consider the reason for the reshuffle in the IFC to be the “strengthening of the Boris Aleshin team”, which began with the arrival of Mr. Solodilin in the Red Wings. The Red Wings declined to comment, Rostec promised to give it “when the time comes.”

According to a Kommersant source in the expert community, one of the Il-96s had already been painted in the AirBridgeCargo livery when it became known that there would be no deal. “The company was, to put it mildly, dissatisfied,” he notes. The situation, according to him, serves as an alarming signal about the strengthening of the position of the largest players close to the state. As an illustration, he cites the story of STLC-owned Boeing 737s, which, according to him, S7 wanted to acquire, in June it became known that both aircraft would go to Aeroflot.

Aigul Abdullina