The management company “Rusnano” decided to declare bankruptcy and not liquidate the non-functioning “Optogan” that it owned.

LLC “UK “Rusnano”” declared bankruptcy of a non-working company owned by it through LLC “RNI” – LLC “Optogan”. The structure owes Rusnano about 1.5 million rubles. The Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region has not yet accepted the claim, as follows from the court file. The press service of JSC Rusnano did not respond to RB.RU’s request.

This is not the first time Rusnano has filed claims against Optogan and its CEO Alexey Kostyakov. In 2023, the management company recovered 2.7 million rubles from Optogan for audit services. In addition, RNI LLC, owned by Rusnano, attempted to recover more than 10 million rubles from the general director for losses within the framework of a major transaction with LED-Energoservice LLC, which was not approved by the participants. Rusnano argued that the defendant Kostyakov acted in the interests of a former member of the company and “caused losses due to the need to pay for the services of the plant to store goods.” However, in three cases the court sided with the accused.

At the end of 2023, the Treasury wanted to bankrupt Optogan. The Interdistrict Inspection of the Federal Tax Service No. 22 of St. Petersburg filed a lawsuit demanding that Optogan be declared bankrupt due to a debt of 840 thousand rubles. The court dismissed the application due to the lack of registered assets in the debtor’s possession, the impossibility of financing the bankruptcy procedure from the federal budget and covering legal costs in the bankruptcy case from the debtor’s assets.

Artem Shvaika, general director of the Eclecs law firm, says that Optogan LLC began to have serious financial difficulties a long time ago, so in 2015 the possibility of declaring the company bankrupt was considered.

The lawyer also noted that the management of Rusnano Management Company, after assessing the development prospects and risks of Optogan LLC’s activities, came to the conclusion that the further operation of the subsidiary seemed inappropriate.

JSC Rusnano itself recently warned about the risk of bankruptcy, as follows from a report dated May 29, 2024, published on the website of the Corporate Information Disclosure Center, Shvaika noted.

• Optogan was known as a St. Petersburg startup that developed revolutionary LED production technology and attracted Rusnano and Mikhail Prokhorov as co-investors. In 2015, the startup was on the brink of closure. Currently, Optogan brand products are produced by Led-Energoservice LLC, which, according to the court, is a former member of Optogan. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the beneficiary of the Led-Energoservice company is Georgy Boos.

Rusnano first reported the risk of its own bankruptcy in the fall of 2023, when its net debt reached 95 billion rubles.