Biography:
Born in 1962 in Georgia in a family of Georgian Jews. Yet in Soviet times, he moved to Leningrad, and according to some sources, he worked as a doctor there.
His brother Ilyas's wife is a founder of the pharmaceutical company "Lynx" Nina (Nino) Boterashvili. In 1980 she graduated from the Leningrad Pediatric Medical Institute. At that time Mirilashvili brothers - Michael and Gabriel (Konstantin) - two much more famous physicians of pediatric studied there also. These Leningrad doctors were born in Georgia in the Caucasus known family of devout Jews. The elder brother Mikhail was the head of one of the most influential in St. Petersburg financial and political groups in 90's .
Mikhail Mirilashvili and Shota Boterashvili formed a company ZAO "VAM- laboratories" in 1995. One of the owners of the company is the widow of the first mayor of St. Petersburg Lyudmila Narusova.
Another official center of economic activity of Boterashvili is ZAO "Neohim", which established a number of firms. One of those is the company "Solo Travel Service" (ITS) - main beneficiary of his wife Victoria Shamlikashvili .
A major step in a business career of Boterashvili became his penetration into the system "VTB". According to some reports, Shota Davidovich contributed to the acquisition of very "United Georgian Bank" by Russians (now it is renamed to the "VTB Bank Georgia") through his relations in Tbilisi appeared after Saakashvili had come to power. According to financial statements, yet in 2007 Boterashvili and Vadim Levin entered the Board of Control of the Georgian-Russian structure. Both partners obtained similar posts in the Armenian branch of "VTB".
Boterashvili was involved in investment projects of the company "Alrosa", and even appeared in the information sources in connection with the notorious scandal over the seizure of the Moscow stud farm.
A test of extended powers of the banker Boterashvili became the project “European Embankment" for building an elite housing quarter, the Palace of dance and social housing for employees of the FSB in Malaya Nevka. Ownership of the project is assigned to OOO "Petersburg City", which for the past eight years has been the target of a struggle between different groups of shareholders. When "VTB-Capital" was renamed to "VTB-Development" making it a subsidiary of the bank, a new order provided more transparent management schemes. Perhaps this factor has something to do with the fact that Shota Boterashvili prefered to leave the company.
Source: "Our version of the Neva" from 22.12.2008
According EGRYuL, in 2005 Boterashvili became co-founder and owner of 10% stake in VTB-Development ".
In the ranking of the richest Georgians of the world, held by the newspaper The Georgian Times Shota Boterashvili took the 22th place in 2007. His personal assets then were estimated at $ 500 million
Apart from Shota Boterashvili, the owners of "VTB-Development" were OAO “IC OFC" (45%) and OAO "Bank for Foreign Trade" (45%). Notably, Shota Boterashvili performed as co-owner of the OAO "IC "OFC " through ZAO Neohim.
In quarterly reports by VTB the name of Boterashvili figured for the last time in August 2006.
Source: Business Petersburg # 167 (2733) on 08.09.2008
Dossier:
Shota Boterashvili appeared in the view of the media in 2000 due to a strange story occurred to his brother, Ilya Boterashvili. Journalists reported that members of Directorate for Combating Economic Crimes and the Central Police Department of St. Petersburg was detained as a suspect in a fraud - attribution of 194 thousand dollars. According to the law enforcement agencies, three years before the arrest of Ilya Davidovich Boterashvili (a relative of businessman Shota Davidovich Boterashvili) he received money from his potential partners ostensibly for the purchase of food products. The citizens confined in him and never saw neither Boterashvili, nor the promised goods, or their money after that.
The criminal action of fraud was prosecuted under Article 159 part 3, paragraph "b" of the Criminal Code - "Fraud committed on a large scale," however nothing is known about its fate. Ilya Boterashvili was detained in accordance with Article 122 of the CPC.
According to journalists, Ilya Boterashvili at the time of arrest was the founder of three companies - OOO "Lynx", AOZT "Sova" and AOZT "Antanta-Center". Main activity of all the firms was wholesale.
Source: www.rospres.ru from 30.08.2000
The next mention in the press about Shoty Boterashvili concerned an ambitious development project implementation in St. Petersburg - the construction of the complex "European Embankment". Moreover, it was mentioned in connection with a conflict situation, which essence, as journalists considered, was due to the fact the project had been taken away from people connected with the oligarch Boris Berezovsky. its participants discussed the project in the press: well-known choreographer Boris Eifman, the project coordinator, adviser to the presidential envoy of the Central Federal District in Russia- Dmitry Naklonov, the chief advisor to the Chairman of the Board of "Vneshtorgbank" Shota Boterashvili and director of the Construction Corporation "Renaissance Saint Petersburg" Ivan Romanov.
in particular, the journalist directly asked Boterashvili then: Ain't you afraid that the cultural and social perspective, we have been talking about, will remain on the paper? When it comes to finance, other circumstances are often secondary ...
Boterashvili in response listed the names of high-ranking persons who had supported the project: Ministers Gref and Alexei Kudrin, and the Central Bank chairman Sergei Ignatiev.
Source: "The version in St. Petersburg" from 25.07.2005
In a few months Boterashvili made the journalists interested in connection with a completely unexpected matter. The media gained some audio recordings of telephone conversations between someone like President of “Alrosa" (Russia's largest diamond mining company) Alexander Nichiporuk and other interesting persons, Shota Boterashvili was allegedly one of them. The voices of Boterashvili and Nechiporuk discussed creation of some state unitary enterprise, investment company, as well as the construction of a stud farm. Interestingly, the voice of Boterashvili referred to some personal arrangements with the head of the department of Presidential affairs Vladimir Kozhin.
Source: "Kompromat.ru citing alrosa2005, 30.12.2005
In March 2007, the journalists reported that Boterashvili was about to lose his position in the project of "European Embankment". Such a sign appeared to be the changes of Director General of OOO "Petersburg City" - the management company of the project "Embankment of Europe". The new general director of the "Petersburg City" became Nadezhda Vinnik,who previously had served as deputy general director of ZAO "VTB-Capital" (CEO of " VTB-Capital " was Sergei Matvienko, son of the governor of St. Petersburg). She obtained the post of Victoria Shamlikashvili - wife of Shota Boterashvili who had headed the company by that moment. Shamlikashvili obtained the post of general director of the tourist company "Solo Travel Service" which she had been leading also.
At the same time, as the journalists noticed, the encumbrance stated in the final disposal of the Federal Property Agency, questioned the profit of the project "European Embankment".
Source: "Business Petersburg" from 05.03.2007
Later the first publications about the problems of "European Embankment" project realization appeared in the press. Journalists wrote about the claims to the company "VTB-Capital" relating to the project "European Embankment". The position of the author of the claims who supposedly was the former head of Project Management Company OOO "Petersburg City" Sergei Lvov - was as follows: you bought shares of OOO "Petersburg City" from my company and promised to pay me $ 6 million after the Government Decree which was to assign the territory of the future construction for the company. The decree came, but you did not fulfill your obligations! We'll have to remember the violations made during the purchase of the shares.
The claim was addressed to the former head of "VTB-Capital" Shota Boterashvili. Shota Davidovich said in a brief telephone conversation with the correspondent that he did not know Sergei Lvov, and he did not understand what was going on. The intonation of the conversation made it clear: this topic was extremely unpleasant for him. The journalists assumed: there might have been details that if used by specially trained people could bring under question a principal matter- the right of Vneshtorgbank to manage this ambitious project. If there was a trial and the court decided that there was no such a right, the consequences would be hard to predict. Because the project was estimated at almost half a billion dollars. The hint was never in doubt: those details appeared thanks to the actions of Shota Boterashvili. A former general director of OOO "Petersburg City" Mikhail Bregana put it more concretely: Sergey Lvov could have evidence of some formal violations of the current legislation made by "VTB-Capital" when acquiring the shares of "Petersburg City" at a time when "VTB-Capital" had been headed by Boterashvili. Source: www.fontanka.ru from 15.06.2007
In late 2008 the journalists became interested in Shota Boterashvili in connection with another material on the project "European Embankment". In particular, they drew attention to an interesting fact: Boterashvili was chairman of the board of directors of OAO "Bunker terminal "West" and worked together with former vice-governor of St. Petersburg and the chairman "KBDH" (Committee for Municipal Improvement and Road Facilities) of St. Petersburg Oleg Virolaynen, who was a member of the Board of Directors of the OAO “Bunker Terminal "West". That OAO was established to finance the construction of the project oil bunker base in Ust-Luga port with capacity of 2 million tonnes. According to media reports, in 2000 the Ministry of Transport of Russia concluded a state agreement with OAO on the construction of the terminal. One can also assume that when Boterashvili tried to implement the project of terminal he was connected with the Government of Leningrad Region. However, the terminal was not constructed. In any case, according to SPARK, OAO "Bunker Terminal "West" ceased its activities due to the liquidation. According to SPARK, 25% of shares in OAO "Bunker Terminal "West" were owned by ZAO "Neohim", and co-owned by Shota Boterashvili.
Source: "Business Petersburg" # 167 (2733) on 08.09.2008
Interestingly, after the publication of the previous article the company "VTB-Development" formally distanced itself from Boterashvili and even gave the newspaper relevant documents.
Source: "Business Petersburg" # 168 (2734) on 09.09.2008
And in December 2008, Shota Boterashvili appeared in the center of an odd story when he himself actually "imprisoned" Anna Astanina in a psychiatric hospital, the former wife of his business partner, chairman of VTB Vadim Levin. Thus Boterashvili "helped" Levin in his conflict with ex-wife because of the children.
Anna Astanina and Vadim Levin (they are natives of Petersburg, moved to the capital in the late 90's), had been married for more than ten years and finally split. All that time they had been arguing about their children. First, the son Theodore (he is now 11 years old) and daughter Maria (she is 4 years) lived with the mother. Then Vadim took the boy from Anna. At the same time Levin ceased to communicate with his ex-wife (referring to the ill health and lack of time) and made the Petersburg businessman and a former psychotherapist Shota Boterashvili a mediator in these matters. December 4, Anna arrived in St. Petersburg to meet Boterashvili, and immediately after she disappeared and was found in the mental hospital # 6.
According to the journalists referring to the sister of Astanina, Shota Boterashvili took Anna into his restaurant "Aragvi" on the embankment of Fontanka which was prudently closed for "a cleaning day". Then he said he she bored him, called the two guards. Those held the woman and forcibly poured a bottle of vodka in her throat. Of course, Anna became drunk after that. Nevertheless, she remembers that the guards themselves crammed a lot of dishes around and called for psychiatric help.
Already on December 5 the Smolninsky court ruled on compulsory treatment of Astanina; the witnesses appeared to be Vadim Levin who had urgently arrived from Moscow, Theodore's nanny - Emma Javadyan and Shota Boterashvili. The woman was not allowed to contact any relatives or lawyers in St. Petersburg. She spent 15 days in the mental clinic. Only on December 19 she was rescued from it. During Astanina's stay in the hospital her daughter disappeared from the Moscow apartment.
According to Anna and her family, the sole purpose of placing in the mental hospital was takeover of her children, and in the future — gaining all the rights to bring them up. According to Astanina, doctors had tried all sorts of ways to prove her ill health, to herself as well.
I was examined by three medical boards, which were headed by the chief psychiatrist of Petersburg Sergey Litvintsev, thus I can conclude that he personally supervised the situation, the ex-wife of oligarch told reporters.
Source: "Novaya Gazeta in St. Petersburg" # 96 dated 25.12.2008
In March 2010 Boterashvili came in view of the media in connection with the the business empire of VTB scandal. The reporters learnt that on February, 11 the Directorate for Combating Economic Crimes ("UBEP”) of MIAD in Moscow refused to institute criminal proceedings on the application of the minority shareholder of VTB Alexei Navalny and several other minority shareholders of the bank. The shareholders asked to check the actions of the employees of VTB and VTB-Leasing, which had wrongly concluded the contracts for the sale and leasing of drilling equipment.
On July 26, 2007 the Cyprus Clusseter Ltd concluded a contract with VTB-Leasing ("Vedomosti" has it) to purchase 30 drilling rigs ZJ50DBS. Then they were to be leased to "Well Drilling Corporation". The contract was valued at $ 456.9 million, together with customs duties and taxes - $ 650 million.
VTB-Leasing purchased equipment not from the Chinese manufacturer Sichuan Honghua Petroleum Equipment, but from the Cyprus Clusseter (failed to find its contacts) and paid more than $ 15 million for each installation without customs duties and charges, according to the contract. The annual report of the Chinese company pointed out that the cost of the equipment was about $ 10 million. The total damage from the purchase was around $ 160 million, as Navalny calculated.
In particular, according to the body of the decision to dismiss the criminal case, members of the Board of Directors "Well Drilling" were as follows: Victoria Shamlikashvili and Shota Boterashvili. Both are in the Board of the St. Petersburg "VTB Capital" (now "VTB Development"), and Boterashvili was also the chief adviser of the Board of VTB, board member of "VTB Armenia" and the United Georgian Bank (now "VTB Georgia").
Source: Vedomosti # 51 (2569) 24.03.2010