Vladimir Potanin’s company Interros was registered in a special administrative region (SAR, the so-called Russian offshore) on Russky Island. Interros Capital LLC was registered on December 10, Interfax reported with reference to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. Before registration in the SAR, Interros Capital Ltd had a “residence” in Cyprus and was called Bonico Holdings Co. Ltd. She owns 30.17% of the shares of Norilsk Nickel.
Key assets of Interros are the world’s largest producer of nickel and palladium, a large producer of platinum and copper Norilsk Nickel (35.95%), a developer and manufacturer of pharmaceuticals and vaccines Petrovax Pharm, and the ski resort Rosa Khutor. Interros is also the main investor in Winter Capital, which manages over $ 1 billion in assets.
SAR on about. Russian in Vladivostok and about. Oktyabrsky appeared in Kaliningrad in 2018 to attract capital from foreign companies of Russians to the country. Change of corporate registration (re-domiciliation) allows foreign companies to migrate to Russia, that is, to change their tax residency and country of registration.
At the same time, international companies moving to the SAR, as in the case of foreign offshore companies, can count on benefits. The main preferences in the SAR are as follows: 0% on received dividends with a share in the capital of at least 15%; 5% for the transfer of dividends abroad (for PJSCs); 0% on income from the sale of shares / shares in companies (with a share in the capital of 15% and a period of ownership of more than a year); income of Russian beneficiaries of international holding companies (MHC) in the form of MHC profits is not taxed; MHK’s income from subsidiaries abroad is also not taxed.
UC Rusal, founded by Oleg Deripaska, and its main shareholder, En +, were the first to declare their desire to move to the SAR (to Oktyabrsky Island in the Kaliningrad Region) in 2018. The latter became a resident of the offshore in July 2019, and UC Rusal – in September 2020. In December 2021, Dmitry Mazepin’s Uralchem Holding became a resident of the CAP. And in February on about. Russian in the registered company “SUEK Ltd” – a subsidiary of the largest coal producer in Russia – SUEK Andrey Melnichenko.
To date, 60 participants have been registered in the SAR on Oktyabrsky Island. The largest residents of the SAR are mainly subsidiaries or holding structures or funds of such international groups as En +, UC Rusal, Uralchem PIK, Sodruzhestvo agricultural complex, Yandex, Gazprombank, Sovcombank, Lenta. 4 residents are registered on the Russky Island – Vostochny Bank, two SUEK structures and a subsidiary of Rosneft.
The transfer of Interros to the CAP is associated not so much with sanction risks as with the optimization of company management, says the head of the department for legal work at Resource Lex, associate professor of the Department of Civil Law Disciplines of the PRUE. G.V. Plekhanov Andrey Moiseev. A few years ago, US officials began engaging with Cyprus on capital flows, he explains. It is obvious that the trend of re-registration of business in Russia will continue, the expert said. The example of “Interros” attracts attention because it is one of the largest companies that “moved” to the SAR.
The advantages for the residents of the SAR, according to Moiseev, are in the manifestation of the state’s loyalty to the very idea of creating the SAR. But for now, most companies remain in their usual tax-free regimes, the expert notes, from which it can be concluded that entrepreneurs have a low level of trust in such projects.
Dmitry Grinkevich contributed to this article
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