Biography:
Born in 1968 in Minsk. He graduated from the Minsk Suvorov Military School.
In 1986-1988 he served in Afghanistan. In 1997 he graduated from Moscow State University of Foreign Affairs
1997 – the Vice-president of TNK operating in Western Siberia
1999 – the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federal Property Fund (RFPF)
2002 – the First Deputy Chairman of the RFPF
2002 – the President of “Sibur Holding”
2003 - resigned from the post of the president of “Sibur”
2005 – the Chairman of the Board of Directors Kirovo-Chepetsk Chemical Works (KCCW)
2007 – the Chairman of the Board of Directors of URALCHEM
Source: vedomosti.ru
Dossier:
In 1998 Mazepin became the General director of OAO “Nizhnevartovskneftegaz”. He started as a "cleaner" to remove the consequences of the confrontation between the owners of “Tyumen Oil Company" and the former CEO of OAO “Nizhnevartovskneftegaz” Viktor Paly. Mazepin used the same scheme working for the benefit of TNK, "Renova" and even the state while serving in the RFPF.
In 2002 Mazepin was invited to be the "cleaner" in “Sibur”. Managers of Gazprom concerned about the return of assets withdrawn from the company in the 90’s. “Sibur” was the largest of them, "Gazprom" made great efforts to break the resistance of his top manager Yakov Goldovsky. However, “Gazprom” didn’t expect that the withdrawal of assets would continue.
Source: "Tribune" on 06/05/2008
As the president of JS “Sibur”, Mazepin brought a group of managers with him who come from "Propane-butane group" from Nizhny Novgorod The new Sibur management began to annoy the Chairman of Gazprom Alexey Miller, and in 2003 he was retired. Mazepin took along a portion of the holding assets.
Source: "Kommersant-Vlast" from 05.07.2004
Practically all of nitric industry, controlled by Gazprom, was withdrawn by Mazepin, Nickolay Gornovsky and George Brilling. Gornovsky headed “Mezhregiongaz”, the main distributing division of Gazprom. On behalf of “Mezhregiongaz” Brilling headed agrochemical corporation (hereinafter ACC) "Azot", which included Kirovo-Chepetsk Chemical Works.
Mazepin, Gornovsky and Brilling didn’t have money to pay for these companies at the market prices. Gornovsky found money by imposing excessive prices for gas, which he took in “Mezhregiongaz” and supplied through their home-based businesses. Regional sales divisions established the necessary limits on the usage of gas for the enterprises. Thus, in 2002, almost all the ACC Azot shares were passed into the Brilling’s companies. In other words, businesses were withdrawn and the withdrawn funds were used to buy shares.
After this operation, Brilling went to Spain and Mazepin stayed to monitor the withdrawn property.
In 2003, ACC Azot was under the control of “Neftegazbank”. “Gazprom” was trying to return the assets through it, but there was nothing to return. Later "Neftegazbank” went bankrupt, the assets remained to Mazepin. Holding “Uralchem” was based on the “ACC Azot” assets.
Since 2003 Mazepin did not lose control over the Kirov-Chepetsk Chemical Works.
In 2004 Mazepin miraculously beat Gazprom on the auction for sale of Kirovo-Chepetsk Chemical Works state shares: it went to an unknown company "Fintrastkom", which acted for the benefit of Mazepin. “Gazprom” believed that Mazepin knew in advance how much the rivals were ready to give and he got prepared.
Someone decided to avenge Mazepin and the gas flow to the Kirov-Chepetsk Chemical Works was stopped. But as for the court decision it was decided to turn on the gas.
Similarly, in the same way Mazepin won the auction for a controlling stake of the enterprise "Halogen" against company “Renova”.
Conflicts with “Gazprom” and “Renova” eventually were settled.
Source: "Tribune" from 05.06.2008
In 2005-2006, the Kirov-Chepetsk Works (KCCW) was in the center of the scandal: it repeatedly appeared as a malicious intruder of the environmental standards in media reports.
Unscheduled inspection, conducted in summer 2005 revealed the excess of admissible norms of ammonium nitrogen - a byproduct in the manufacture of fertilizers. Concentration in water samples from the river Vyatka exceeded the norm by 10 times. Analysis of soil samples from the plant showed the excess of heavy metals concentration. In the groundwater - the excess of benzene, and the presence of petroleum products and lead.
In 2005 Mazepin denied the very fact of inspections at the plant. But environmentalists were carrying out the new checks. Then he changed tactics and began to declare in the media that raiders wanted to occupy his factory, hence all these checks were with rigged results. But then the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) of Russia announced its intention to inspect all the major chemical plants in Russia, and the version of Mazepin was beneath criticism.
Inspection in March 2006 found even more serious violations and the Ministry of Natural Resources began procedures on the withdrawal of licenses for water use from the plant.
Mazepin said through the press service of the plant, that no violations were revealed by the MNR.
Meanwhile, the results were shocking. Near the river Vyatka lake Prosnoe was found, which was covered with several layers of plaster. KCCW dumped its waste to the river Prosnitsa flowing into the lake. Substances between the layers of plaster in case of lake flooding threatened mass poisoning.
Re-inspection of waste waters revealed the excess of the limited concentration of ammonia nitrogen.
As long as the check was carried out, Mazepin agreed with Rostekhnadzor (i.e. Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Atomic Supervision), and very convenient standards were approved for temporary agreed dumping.
Source: solomin from 16.01.2006
In June 2008, holding «Uralchem» reported about purchasing of controlling stake of OAO “Voskresensk Mineral Fertilizers” from a certain company. Mazepin knew that some of these stocks was the subject of litigation between the company “FosAgro” and the Austrian company “Uritrans”.
“Uritrans” acquired a controlling stake of the plant in 2006 with the right of a vendor to buy back 14.8% of its stake. But as soon as "FosAgro" decided to buy these shares, “Uritrans” went to court. "FosAgro” filed a countersuit. The court made a decision in favor of "FosAgro”. But three days before the decision was made Mazepin had already bought shares, and not even from “Uritrans”, but from the new owner "Agroprodmir”, whom Uritrans managed to sell a controversial package.
Source: "Tribune" from 23.06.2008
It is notable that to acquire “Voskresensk Mineral Fertilizers” shares Mazepin did not even have any available funds.
After the purchase,“Uralchem” appealed to “Voskresensk Mineral Fertilizers” minority shareholders with a public offer to purchase shares at the price of the controlling stake. Previously, minority shareholders tried to redeem them several times but Uralchem resisted. Minority shareholders were kicked out from URALCHEM office. Next time, when minority shareholders came to the office with the police, there were no doorplates and the main glass door was curtained with bed sheet. Mail did not reach the office since it was announced that URALCHEM personnel was in quarantine. “Voskresensk Mineral Fertilizers” management also did not work.
And yet it seemed that Uralchem had received the notice of the offer as media reported that Sberbank extended a credit line to URALCHEM.
Source: solomin on 28/10/2008
It later turned out that Uralchem still did not receive a statement from a minority shareholder, Shades of Ciprus Limited. In October 2008 the Board of Directors "VMF" planned additional emission of its shares in order to reduce the share of Shades of Ciprus Limited.
Source: solomin on 07.11.2008
Mazepin also had problems with people standing behind Uritrans, the former owners of a controlling stake of "«VMF»" due to the fact that he had nothing to pay with. It was initially supposed to act in accordance with offshore trading scheme with the center of the accumulation of profits in Uritrans: there must have been a sufficient amount of money on the
offshore accounts to pay for the shares of «VMF». But the demand for fertilizers in the world markets fell sharply, and the money stopped coming.
Source: solomin on 28.10.2008
In 2008 Mazepin quickly begins to prepare Uralchem for the IPO. Most likely, he wanted to quickly and profitably sell the disputed assets abroad. Mazepin increased profit for the first half of 2008 to 126 times in the documents. But the crisis impeded Mazepin plans.
Source: "Tribune" from 23.06.2008
In early November 2008 «VMF» was stopped. Situation at the plant was deliberately pressurized, accusing for the stop the "FosAgro" company, a supplier of raw materials. Murad Chaparov, the company CEO, “helped” in this case. Rallies were held, letters were written. Employees were transferred for 3-4 days working week. Salaries declined. Law enforcement got interested in the situation at the enterprise.
But despite the propaganda, the majority of workers and Voskresensk residents inclined to conclude that the bankruptcy of the plant was brought by the leadership itself in the face of
Chaparov. However, it is not so, because Chaparov acted by Mazepin management. And he had such a plan: to save his other assets he was to donate "«VMF»". And to put all the blame for this on "FosAgro", which does not supply the plant with raw materials.
Source: solomin on 21.11.2008
Already having a debt of 700 million rubles to Sberbank, Mazepin applied for another loan - three billion. It was rumored that Mazepin received unsecured loans due to a special relationship with some members of the Sberbank. At the same time Mazepin decided to challenge in court acquisition of new assets he had committed himself to evade payment of the loans.
The fact that Mazepin had much to get away with it, showed that some influential figures helped him. So, early in his career, in “Sibur” Mazepin was recommended by the deputy chairman of Gazprom's security Sergei Lukash. As the president of Sibur, Mazepin often met with Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller. It is still not clear whether this affected Mazepin’s victory over Gazprom in court.
Source: Skandaly.Ru of 08.04.2009
By 2009, Mazepin was heavily in debt. There was a rumor about his big loss in preference. There were also rumors that soon Mazepin is going abroad. Through the radio station “Ekho Moskvy” Mazepin even asked the government to save him from bankruptcy.
Source: solomin on 05.06.2009
In 2009, Rosprirodnadzor (i.e. Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resource Usage) filed six lawsuits against "«VMF»", but the court did not accept anything referring to certain formal reasons.
Cyprus offshore company, which is 99% owned by Uralchem, sent three cases to URALCHEM for invalidation of the three acquisition deals for gaining control over "«VMF»" to force the former owners to return the money.
Mazepin tried to implement another way to make profit - by filing a lawsuit against the company "Apatite", with the requirement that "«VMF»" must be supplied by raw material at a fixed price. It would be a great opportunity to engage in speculation and sell raw materials on the market at world prices.
Source: solomin on 27.07.2009
In 2009, Uralchem registered in Latvia its wholly owned subsidiary Uralchem Trading, which would control the export of fertilizers, that is, the only income of URALCHEM. Mazepin also was going to create a profit center of the company in Riga.
At the same time, the shareholders of «VMF» approved an additional emission, which would result in the company authorized capital increase by 2.5 times. An unknown Cypriot company Assethill was ready to buy all the additional emission. Thus Mazepin prepared «VMF» to bankruptcy, so that all risks would lay down for another company as the formal owner of the plant. Mazepin took everything which could be useful from the "«VMF»": he drew land documents for Culture Center, which belonged to the plant, as well as museum and library, with the aim to sell them profitably in future.
He reissued approach lines and treatment facilities (the whole Kirov region depend on them) on his top managers.
Source: solomin on 28.07.2009
Everything happening on the "«VMF»" was carried out with the consent and participation of the head of Voskresensk Yuri Sleptsov.
He said to the public that he was unable to reconcile “Uralchem” and “FosAgro”, which supplied the «VMF» with the apatite concentrate.
But in fact, Sleptsov took the side of URALCHEM and its director Chaparov, and hence Mazepin.
Source: solomin on 12.10.2009
Sleptsov’s inaction “helped” «VMF» to go bankrupt and brought Voskresensk to social crisis. First Sleptsov shut his eyes to the way how funds were withdrawn from «VMF» through a fraudulent company, “Energosbytovaya Company of Moscow Region” (Retail supplier of Moscow Region). And then Sleptsov helped to sell the property of the plant: the rolling stock and access roads to "«VMF»" were brought to “Uralhimtrans” LLC, a freight forwarding company of Mazepin. The factory electrical substation was reissued to one another company.
Then Mazepin let Sleptsov to drive MUP “SEZ housing and public utilities” into bankruptcy in order to merge it with one of the Mazepin companies with inter-district treatment plants.
But not all “VMF" property was easily received by Mazepin. The Cultural Center was a problem: its director Alla Orlova raised citizens to fight. She had been threatened, they tried to find incriminating evidence against her but that didn’t frighten her, so the Cultural Center was left untouched.
Source: solomin from 10.07.2009
In October 2009, the head of Voskresensk was Elected - Sleptsov won. But the original protocols of the election commission showed that his main rival Gennady Yegorov had won. Ballot rigging was done by Mazepin.
On the fact of falsification the Russian prosecutor's office opened a criminal case. His collaborators found the original documents, according to which Yegorov won more votes, transformed by the manual editing into drafts of fakes.
Source: The Moscow Post on 09.11.2009
In 2010 it became known that Mazepin – the primary, but not the sole owner of URALCHEM. Previously Mazepin argued that he had never had partners but before the IPO was launched, it became known that this is not so.
Source: Vedomosti on 01.03.2010
Andrey Zherebtsov turned out to be the minority owner of “URALCHEM”, who owns 10% of the company. Zherebtsov – the former partner of law company “Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasiev and Partners”, the former head of the British representative of Investment Company "Horizon", and now - an independent investor.
Source: Vedomosti on 11.03.2010
The media made the suggestion that in fact Mazepin was a hired manager of URALCHEM, and its majority owner was Vladimir Malin, the former head of Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Mazepin was his deputy and protege at a certain time).
Source: solomin on 05.08.2009