“Owed ₽36 billion: the stories of Russia’s major bankrupts in 2023” — Denis Khimilyayne for RBC Pro
In the second quarter of 2023, arbitration courts completed 62.9 thousand bankruptcy cases of citizens. They owed their creditors 199 billion rubles, of which only 15 billion rubles were returned. RBC Pro provides the largest cases in terms of the amount of debt and the amount of repayment.
The country's arbitration courts continue to increase the pace of consideration of bankruptcy cases of citizens. In the second quarter of 2023, they set a new record for the number of completed procedures: for the first time in history, their number exceeded 60 thousand and amounted to 62.92 thousand.
The outstanding obligations of debtors under these procedures amounted to 199.055 billion rubles. Moreover, more than 102 billion rubles were accounted for by the 50 largest bankrupts.
The second place is 582 million out of 582 million rubles. Dmitry Pikulin (Moscow)
Founder of the Kraft Commercial and Industrial Group (unites furniture trade, logistics and commercial real estate) Dmitry Pikulin attracted loans for his business from Avtovazbank, but after the revocation of that license in 2018, he turned out to be a debtor of the state bank of non-core assets Trust. Pikulin acted as a guarantor for all his companies (Crocus Style Plus LLC, ATE-Terminal, Vostochnaya Auditskaya, etc.) to the bank, therefore, all claims totaling 534 million rubles of principal and 44 million rubles of interest were presented to him as part of his personal bankruptcy procedure.
The entrepreneur's insolvency case was considered for five years in parallel with the bankruptcy cases of the Kraft Group companies. And as a result, all these cases ended with a general settlement agreement, according to which the state bank received 86 million rubles. in payment of the debt, after which it considered the debtors' obligations fulfilled.
Denis Himiline, Senior Partner of Prime Advice:
Recently, courts have rarely met bankrupts halfway and, as a rule, refuse to write off debts. And this means that the debtor will be "pulled" until the end of his days. Especially when there are no funds, but creditors want to recover something. Not to mention the fact that many bankruptcies resemble scenes from the famous flogging movie, when one character, hinting at the futility of the measure used, asks: "Maybe you shouldn't"? And the other, in the heat of educational enthusiasm, responds: "It's necessary, Fedya, it's necessary."
Meanwhile, debt cancellation is a kind of chance to "get better", come to your senses and restart the business after some time.
Perhaps a kind of reassessment of business risks is currently taking place, and the courts are trying to maintain adequacy.