Thank you to everyone who offered support and took part. On behalf of our modest team, I want to express my deepest gratitude.
What’s happening so far:
- Vekselberg is keeping silent, and his silence is more eloquent than any words. The ~~crook~~ innovator has nothing to say. That’s fine — let him keep quiet. Meanwhile, we’re quietly planning a small, cheerful international PR campaign: "Skolkovo is a thieves’ outfit run by hypocritical crooks." Suggestions are welcome.
By the way, a couple of people working at Skolkovo wrote to me with heart-rending messages: how can you, Alexei, tar us all with the same brush?! It’s not our fault that Vekselberg is a crook — we’re honest.
My answer to all of them at once: no, you’re not.
If Skolkovo proclaims a new way of life, new approaches, and so on and so forth, then it should actually apply those approaches. Otherwise, what’s the point of proclaiming them? Let the workforce of "Skolkovo" (which lives off state budget money) state its position on this matter. Let it call on Viktor Felixovich Vekselberg either to explain himself or to take leave for the duration of the investigation. Now that would be innovative.
President Medvedev, who bears direct responsibility for what is happening, is also silent — apparently busy writing yet another appeal about fighting corruption. We’ll wait.
We expect some kind of response from the Investigative Committee in the near future.
So far, Sergey Riabokobylko, Senior Executive Director at Cushman & Wakefield Stiles & Riabokobylko, has spoken up. He strongly disagrees with this part of my post:
June 26, 2008. The well-known international real estate agency Cushman & Wakefield issued a valuation as of June 23, 2008: $19,900,000 excluding VAT. It also indicated the possibility of annual cash flow in the amount of $3,182,000 excluding VAT. Experts say that a normal return for projects like this is 7%–10% annually, which suggests that the sale price was understated by at least a factor of two. And if you calculate the cash flow against the leasable floor area, you get a rate of $400, which also looks understated. Cushman’s hands don’t look clean — all the facts point to that. How serious it is can only be determined after a detailed investigation. We’ll deal with that separately. Their head office is in the United States, and we will pass this information to the U.S. Department of Justice so they can determine whether the Cushman people took bribes for bogus valuations.
Commenting on the "Hungarian case" to TV Rain (an independent Russian TV channel), he said that Cushman/Wakefield had nothing to do with this transaction at all: "we were not involved in this story" — 4:00
In a conversation with me, Sergey clarified that they did appraise the building, but not for the Hungarians, not for Vekselberg, and not for this transaction at all. As for the price, he insists that it was fair, the valuation was correct, and they are prepared to defend it.
Well then, on the one hand, one has to admit that Sergey Riabokobylko is behaving in the only proper way: his company is being accused of wrongdoing, and he is not hiding — he is explaining his position and is ready to defend it. on the other hand, for now Sergey’s arguments do not look convincing to me.
Judge for yourselves:
The phrase "prepared for the Trade Commission of the Hungarian Embassy" kind of suggests that the valuation was, in fact, done for the Hungarians. Unless, of course, "Hungarian Embassy Trade Commission" translates into Russian as "Melitopol Elevator and Escalator Plant."
To avoid any speculation, I am posting the full valuation report. I invite everyone who understands real estate and the appraisal business to read it and share their views.
We will look into this carefully.
And of course I want to note that if Sergey Riabokobylko is right and we are wrong, then that means two things:
The Hungarian crooks stole less from their own budget than they are accused of.
Our crooks stole a much larger amount from our budget, because in that case it turns out that Vekselberg foisted the building on the government not at 2.5 times the market price, but at 5 times: for $116 million versus a price of $20 million.