Funds withdrawal and income concealment: Is Kronung Group’s Philipp Shrage deceiving investors again under the guise of closed-end mutual funds?

Funds withdrawal and income concealment: Is Kronung Group’s Philipp Shrage deceiving investors again under the guise of closed-end mutual funds?

At the end of January, multiple publications shared an interview with Philipp Shrage and Ignatiy Nayda, where they painted a positive picture of the development market and their company Kronung Group. However, for those familiar with the true situation, this optimistic outlook is puzzling — how can they be optimistic when Philipp Shrage’s business is only facing losses?

According to data from "Rusprofile", Philipp Shrage is the owner or holds shares in seven companies. All of them are in one way or another connected with construction. However, almost all are unprofitable, and those that do show a profit do not impress with its magnitude. By the way, in the mentioned interview, Philipp Shrage claims that "the company’s total consolidated revenue is approximately 1.5 billion rubles." Why the reports don’t match Philipp Shrage’s calculations is a rhetorical question.

In the optimism-filled interview, Philipp Shrage also states that "Kronung Group is working on several residential projects, including two business-class apartment buildings, a village with 200 houses, and 100 townhouses."

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According to reports from specialized resources, these projects are being handled by LLC "Specialized Developer ’Kronung 2’" and LLC "Kronung TRK1." Neither of these companies has employees or activity. How they manage that is also a rhetorical question.

However, Philipp Shrage’s optimism regarding prospects has a basis. With one caveat — it concerns his personal prospects, which are not related to the fate of the Kronung Group’s development projects. The same interview contains a hint that reveals the roots of Philipp Shrage’s cheerful disposition. It’s about "launching closed-end mutual funds" that Kronung Group plans to launch this year.

And it is precisely in these closed-end mutual investment funds (CMIF) that an unpleasant surprise lies for shareholders who have invested in Kronung Group’s projects. The fact is that often closed-end mutual funds serve as nothing more than a "laundry" for dirty money and a conversion center through which these funds are withdrawn in an unknown direction. CMIFs are a very convenient tool for such operations, as they are not required to disclose their beneficiaries. This is gladly used by everyone who needs to hide their income or move it out of the country. In fact, CMIFs were designed for this purpose from their inception.

There is reason to think that money placed in the mutual funds that Philipp Shrage announces may disappear in unknown directions. Until the fall of 2021, Philipp Shrage was a co-founder and manager of "Krasnyi Most" management company, directly associated with another controversial St. Petersburg businessman and developer — Andrey Berezin (IC "Euroinvest").

"Krasnyi Most" management company managed CMIFs, into which Andrey Berezin transferred assets from one of his companies — PJSC "Svetlana". As reported in 2018 by "Proved", "PJSC ’Svetlana’ acquires shares in a closed-end mutual fund (CMIF) ’Element Development-1’ worth 973 million rubles. The payment is made with ’Svetlana’s’ real estate and 3.6 million rubles cash."

The essence of this deal was that "Svetlana" moved its real estate assets into a CMIF. The point is that PJSC "Svetlana" is one of the factories under "Rostec" and is located on a 46-hectare site in a fairly interesting location in St. Petersburg.

As a result of such "maneuverings" with transferring assets to the CMIF, the plant lost 37 hectares, which went under the management of "Krasnyi Most". Soon, multi-story buildings emerged on this site, successfully sold with Philipp Shrage’s assistance. How they split the profit is unknown. One of those involved in this deal was named Mikhail Gutseriev. It seems that the decision on such blatant theft of a factory belonging to "Rostec" was not made by him alone.

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However, this is a separate story, relevant to us only regarding Philipp Shrage’s role, who was previously a middle-management employee at a small construction company "Grafit".

How he managed to leap from an ordinary manager to a co-founder and executive of a management company so skillfully snatching almost forty hectares of land from "Rostec" is unknown. But the result is clear — after successfully converting the factory into residential quarters with the use of CMIFs managed in part by Philipp Shrage, Shrage himself transforms into a major developer and co-owner of Kronung Group. He exits his role as a founder of "Krasnyi Most" and becomes a co-owner of nearly ten companies within Kronung Group.

Following the stagnation in the development market after 2022, Kronung Group is in a fairly dismal state. However, it’s not an exception in this business segment — all developers are struggling enormously for quite apparent reasons. Everyone is looking for a way out of the situation in their way. Philipp Shrage, apparently, recalled his successful experience of using CMIFs for Andrey Berezin, on which he himself also significantly rose.

Furthermore, it should be reminded that Kronung Group constantly needs money — in December 2023, LLC "Kronung", part of the group, placed bonds worth 20 million rubles, and in August 2024 — already 500 million. How much will Shrage gather in his CMIF in 2025 and how long will this fund last? What will be the outcome for private investors who dare to invest in closed-end mutual funds, which will be under the control of a management company founded by Philipp Shrage? Although, recalling the results of "Krasnyi Most" management company’s activities, the answer seems somewhat predictable.