Biography:
Vladimir Kogan was born on April 27, 1963 in Leningrad. In 1980-1983 he studied at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute.
1983-1985 – served in Soviet Army.
In 1985 entered at full-time course of Leningrad construction institute and in 1989 graduated from the institute as an aeromechanical engineer. He worked in All-Union Joint Stock Company “Intourist as mechanical engineer of Quality Department.
Since 1990 he held a post of the deputy to the general director of association of enterprises and societies "Invert".
In 90’s he created and leaded several trading organizations. According to the messages of mass-media, that time Kogan was close with an informal circle of Leningrad economists which included Anatoly Chubays, Alexey Kudrin, Ilya Juzhanov and others.
In 1992 Kogan created and headed joint venture Joint-Stock Company «Petrovsky trade house» holding accounts in Industrial Construction Bank (ICB) and supplying Petersburg’s branch of Industrial Construction Bank with office equipment.
1995-1996: Joint-Stock Commercial Bank "MENATEP St.-Petersburg", councilor of directors;
1996-Vitabank, councilor of directors;
1996 - Councilor on the bank policy at the Government of Russian Federation,
1996: Industrial Construction Bank, assistant, chairman of the Supervisory board
1997: FIG "Northwest food association "Vita", president; Association of commercial banks of St.-Petersburg, councilor;
1997: bank "Petrovsky", member of the Board of Directors;
1998-2005: President of Joint-Stock Company "Bank house "St.-Petersburg”, St.-Petersburg.
1999-2003: joint-stock company "Petersburg timber industry bank", councilor of board of directors;
2000: Board of Russian union of industrialists and entrepreneurs (employers) (RSPP), member of bureau.
2002: Open Society "Arkhangelsk Pulp and paper plant", boar member;
2004: councilor of Business Committee at the Government of Russian Federation;
In 2005 – general director Federal Fiscal Enterprise «Northwest department of State Committee of Construction, Architectural and Housing Policy of Russia – Management of a complex of flooding protection constructions of St.-Petersburg».
On December 30, 2005 he was appointed to a post of a deputy head of Federal agency on building and housing and communal services, Moscow.
2006-2008: Federal agency on building and housing and communal services (Rosstroy), deputy of the general manager;
On July 2, 2008 he was appointed to the post of Director of department of capital investments.
Sources: web-page of the Ministry of regional development http://archive.minregion.ru, web-pages http://www.rb.ru, http://www.peoples.ru
Dossier:
On November 16, 2000 the Industrial Construction Bank supervised by Vladimir Kogan was sought by the Special Police Force. Approximately at the same time police searched the Baltic bank. The reason was interest to Vyacheslav Strugov's accounts who was occupying then a post of the vice-president of committee on an accomplishment and road economy; he was suspected of plunder of budgetary funds and bribery. The investigation showed that Vyacheslav Strugov had received a credit in ICB in amount of 100 thousand dollars, and even though the repayment term had expired, it had repeatedly been continued. The Office of Public Prosecutor had bases to assume that the credit ostensibly was a gratitude to Strugov from the management of ICB and Kogan personally for opening accounts of structural committee divisions in the bank. Later it was found out that the Office of Public Prosecutor requested also the information regarding accounts of 30 more persons including vice-governor of St.Petersburg Valery Malyshev, vice-governor Victor Krotov and a number of other city officials.
Source: «the Independent newspaper», 11/28/2000, «New newspaper», 12/4/2000
Criminal case on this fact was put on hold because of «absence of corpus delicti» in 2001.
In mass-media it is considered that succeeding banker Kogan got help from Vladimir Putin. Probably that was why they rumored about his possible relations with special services. There was a phrase referred to Kogan which he ostensibly said to the foreign partners when adjusting business relations with them - «the best backing is KGB».
Source: "Company" of 5/9/2000
On September 27, 2001 the director of security of ICB Nikolay Shatilo was killed; he was appointed to the post by Vladimir Kogan in 1999. It was considered that Nikolay Shatilo was «a double agent»: being the field investigator was closely connected with activity of so-called Kolesnikov’s organized criminal group. Despite such ambiguous reputation, Vladimir Kogan appointed Shatilo to this post, probably he wished to make secure and in the name of Nikolay Shatilo searched for second "backing" besides special services.
Nikolay Shatilo was included into Board of directors of Vitabank which was under Vladimir Kogan's control till the summer 2001. Later the head of IFG "Lenstrojmaterials" Alexander Aladushkin became the main proprietor of "Vitabank". With the help of "Lenstrojmaterials" Vladimir Kogan carried out the bank "St.-Petersburg" absorption. Nikolay Shatilo and Vladimir Kogan were the only representatives of ICB in the Board of directors of “Vitabank” after the confirmed absorption of the bank by Aladushkin companies at the meeting of shareholders in June, 2000. In mass-media the assumption was that the murder was "ordered" by management of ICB, there were hints to Kogan.
The matter was that during his work Nikolay Shatilo made a number of serious mistakes like missing the search at the head office of ICB.
Source: "Company", 9/8/2001
In 2001 «New newspaper» connected appointment of Kiselev A.N to a post of deputy minister of Russia on communication and information with Kogan’s name who could be interested in using that post for the bank business expansion. Such a person in the Ministry of communication and information was necessary to Vladimir Igorevich, and the owner of «Joint-Stock Company Neva-press» approached for this role very well. People were transferring money to their relatives, while officials used it by putting on bank accounts and drawing interest at the same time, thus the transfers came very late. For this purpose Kiselev signed the document which resolved to managements of a federal mail service and the central office of automatic account of operations in a network of a mail service to carry out operations with the centralized transferable account. It allowed withdrawing money temporarily. Initially for those purposes the basic clearing bank of post branch SvyazBank was used. After Kiselev’s appointment the head of SvyazBank was changed: the first deputy to general director of ICB Shanina M. became the head of Svyazbank; she transferred all state money from Svyazbank to Industrial Construction Bank.
Source: «New newspaper». 25.10.01
At this time it was written in press that Vladimir Kogan received the control over other banks which entered in «Bank house St.-Petersburg» by means of an administrative resource and "black" PR methods: Kogan’s press-service actually discredited bank "Petrovsky" in the opinion of private investors.
There was an attempt to ruin this bank and to transfer pension funds to their accounts . Then on behalf of Fund on protection of investors rights and Leningrad Council of war and labor veterans someone put leaflets to pensioners’ post boxes with appeals to transfer the accounts to Sberbank. After that it was found out that the fund signed nothing and Council had not been registered.
In 1998 bank "Petrovsky" broke off relations with "Industrial Construction Bank" and «Bank St.-Petersburg» and after this declared merge to the Baltonekismbank.
Source: "Version" of 10/3/2000
In the summer of 2002 36% of actions Kotlas Pulp Paper Company (which was a part of holding Ilim Pulp Enterprises) were seized by minority shareholder Sergey Melkinom. Two days after the court those actions were purchased by the Baltic financial agency. Mass-media considered that BFA made it on Vladimir Kogan’s request. In 1994 he was one of co-owners and principal shareholders of IPE; the holding and the bank were closely connected. But in 2001 Vladimir Kogan sold actions to IPE.
Source: «Expert the Northwest», 6/24/2002
Vladimir Kogan's environment had also relation to a meeting organization at the office of the company Ilim Pulp Enterprises which was officially carried out by the nationalist organization «Freedom Party», some organizations - Greenskins and Green Peace. In general mass-media reflected it sharply except for the only newspaper «Neva time» supervised by bank house St.-Petersburg.
Source: «New newspaper», 26.09.02
On November 6, 2002 the head of operating company "Open Society ICB" Leonid Davidenko was killed; one of versions about the reason of the murder was professional work of the victim. Open Company «Operating Company ICB» was founded in the end of July, 2002; Davidenko should have been engaged in management of investment funds, share investment funds which was planned to create in the near future, and also not state pension funds of ICB. In mass-media an opinion was expressed that Davidenko’ death reason should have been sought inside of the bank.
Source: «Version-spb, 11/18/2002
In the middle of 2005 economic mass media found out that Vladimir Kogan did not really own ICB. Journalists knew that equal partner of Kogan in this bank was his assistant in Bank house "St.-Petersburg" David Traktovenko — for June, 1st, 2005 each of them supervised on 23 % of actions of bank.
Besides, there was an investment memorandum of ICB for eurobonds release for the amount at $200 million published, in which it was said that by data on June, 1st Kogan was a beneficial owner of about 23 % of actions; approximately the same amount was supervised by Traktovenko. Vneshtorgbank which in the beginning of year of the bought 25 % + 1 action of bank and agreed about increase in the package to 76 % was the largest shareholder of ICB. "Severstal" possessed 8.7 % of actions of ICB.
Formally neither Kogan, nor Traktovenko were shareholders of ICB. In April, 2004 they issued on themselves 5 % of actions of bank each (Kogan — 5.47 %, Traktovenko — 5.17 %), and in April of this year a month after sale of a block package to Vneshtorgbank they did not have bank actions.
But bank actions were then in hands of vice-president of a BH "St.-Petersburg" and a member of supervisory board of ICB Tamara Stepashina, the spouse of the chairman of Audit Chamber Sergey Stepashin. Her package after the transaction with VTB was reduced from 5 % to 3.34 %.
Source: "Vedomosti", 7/19/2005
In spring of 2007 a serious scandal occurred in St.Petersburg with participation of Vladimir Kogan and the Finnish company Container Finance which owned Open Company «Mobi Dik», an operator of the largest container terminal in the Petersburg sea port. Actually the representatives of "Mobi Dik" accused Vladimir Kogan of trying to dispossess from the Finnish businessmen a plot of land where they planned to build an additional terminal turn for a well known criminal authority Vladimir Barsukov. During this period Kogan was one of the heads of Rosstroy RF and he motivated the actions with technological reasons: the given site prevented the building works of the protective constructions complex, supervised by Rosstroy.
"Mobi Dik" rented a plot of land on island Kotlin, in Petersburg since 2003. In autumn of 2006 under the pressure of City property management committee of St.-Petersburg (CPMC) the management of "Mobi Dik" signed an additional agreement to the rent contract under which the company transferred this territory to Rosstroy for two years after which it would occupy it again.
Under the official version the site was necessary to Rosstroy for dam building. Governor Valentine Matvienko guaranteed that Finns would be allowed to come back in 2 years on the territory. However, even having signed the agreement with the city, Finns doubted that in 2 years they would be allowed to come back.
In May, 2007 the government of Petersburg decided to transfer a disputable area on the dam to the Official body "Agency of strategic investments" (independent division of investments and strategic projects committee). The extract from the Uniform state register of the rights to the real estate and transactions proved that fact. The extract from the register was dated on May, 12. It was said there that "Agency of strategic investments" received enterprise territory of "Sea trading complex" (island Kotlin, area of Litke base) in constant and permanent using with real burden in advantage of "Mobi Dik".
Thus the disputable platform had already three owners: on one side it was a federal structure in the name of management of the protection constructions complex, on the other side – "Mobi Dik" which was asked by the city to leave the territory temporarily. And then there was a third party - "Agency".
Source: www.newsru.com 5/18/2007
Then deputies of State Duma stood up for "Mobi Dik". The group of 8 deputies led by Victor Ilyukhin, Jury Ivanov and Nikolay Kondratenko appealed to FSB and the State Office of Public Prosecutor of Russia with the statement for possible capture by criminal structures of one of key objects in St.-Petersburg – the Complex of protective constructions (CPC), so-called «Petersburg’s dam».
In the statement it was specified that the ship-reloading complex (SRC) at the territory of CPC, which was providing over 10% of goods turnover of seaport in St.-Petersburg, could actually get under control of the Tambov organized criminal group and other structures close to "authoritative" businessman Vladimir Kumarin (Barsukov). According to the deputies, Kumarin (Barsukov) was patronized by the deputy head of Rosstroy RF Vladimir Kogan, a supervisor of CPC building.
Source: Compromat.ru, 5/18/2007
In the beginning of November Container Finance sold 50 % to the company “Multi-Link Terminals” which owned “Mobi Dik”. After that participants of the transaction informed that incident was settled. A bit later Ministry of Transport of Russian Federation authorized building of the second point of boundary control in the terminal. It would help the company to catch up with competitors on a turnover of goods.
Source: www.dp.ru from 12/11/2007
In the beginning of 2010 the structures which were supervising dam construction in Ministry of regional development, headed by Vladimir Kogan lost a judicial suit with engineering company of Oleg Deripaska “Transstroy”. The court recognized that the ministry which had been accusing the contractor of failure to meet the delivery of the second queue of object in fact broke contractual obligations itself. The customer was forced to prolong the contract for more than a year. However Mr.Kogan promised to Vladimir Putin to hand over protective constructions ahead the schedule by the middle of 2011 and thus he would need to double accelerate the long-term construction.
A loud scandal burst on the customer claims to Alpha bank. The bank acted as a guarantor of contract execution with large contractor of the dam building – engineering corporation "Transstroy" ("Inzhtransstroy") by Oleg Deripaska. After reporting about the building schedule advancing to Vladimir Putin on his birthday on October 7, 2008 the customers unexpectedly declared in January, 2009 that "Inzhtransstroy" did not complete the navigation pass С-2 and a drawbridge that it was obliged to construct before March 18, 2008 under the $192 million contract. As a result, Ministry of regional development demanded from Alpha bank to stop guarantee for the sum of $19 million because of the contractor’s failure to fulfill the contract conditions.
In reply to this "Inzhtransstroy" filed to the customer three counterclaims in which it insisted that the customer had broken its contractual obligations. As soon as the case became known, Minregion hastened to accept work from the opponent and to conclude the agreement of lawsuit with Alpha bank. However customer strictly refused to pay the rest of $8 million to the companies of Mr. Deripaska, the motive was that those were penal sanctions for the works having been handed over with a year delay. Besides, under the version of Mr. Kogan’s subordinates the work had been accepted with defects and not in full. "Inzhtransstroy" disagreed with that and continued struggling in court. The contractor reproached the customer for discrepancy of confirmed design documentation with the contract and real geological conditions, and also for delays of the executed works payments, and also for suspension of building for inventory carrying out which was started by mister Kogan at the height of building.
Source: "Kommersant-SpB" № 7 (4307), 1/19/2010