The housing business in Russia, like any profitable industry, traditionally prefers not to advertise its actions. However, lovers of transparency also invaded its territory. The specialists of the dataflat.ru portal studied the data of Rosreestr, compared them with the price lists on the developers' websites and found companies whose revenues over the past couple of years amounted to more than 50 billion rubles. And then Forbes experts stepped in and asked these companies for financial information.
When compiling the list of the most reliable developers in 2019, Forbes magazine focused on the following indicators.
- Specific revenue. Since construction is not a quick process, it was decided to look at the total profit for 2016-2018. It is clear that the higher the profit, the higher the position of the company in the list of champions.
- Growth and development. In addition to net income, it is also important to track the dynamics - whether the company prefers to rest on its laurels or continues to develop.
- Number of leased square meters. The more there are, the higher the rating of the company.
- Accuracy. Namely, how much the developer is inclined to keep his own promises about the delivery of square meters.
- Openness. The more willing the company was to share its data with Forbes experts, the higher its rating was.
- Debts and lawsuits. In addition to positive factors, Forbes paid attention to negative factors - the company's debts, as well as the lawsuits brought against it.
As a result, a list of 20 most financially reliable developers in Russia was formed, 10 of which we will now tell you in more detail about.
10. Ingrad
Where: Moscow
The list of the most reliable developers in the Russian housing market is opened by the Moscow company Ingrad. Its life on the market is only 5 years.
But, according to the press service of the company, it can boast of the fastest growth rates, and over the past year it managed to increase its revenue by as much as one third.
The owner of the company is Roman Avdeev, who, in addition to Ingrad, also owns the Moscow Credit Bank.
9. GC "Pioneer"
Where: Moscow
"Pioneer" is a child of the millennium, born in 2001. Interestingly, initially, Pioneer conducted its business in St. Petersburg, but in 2018 the company's management abruptly withdrew and, like a migratory bird, went to make decisions in Moscow.
The St. Petersburg office has retained the status of a fee-developer - it is a kind of mercenary of the construction world, who provides development services for a certain fee.
Perhaps it was the transfer of the center of activity to Moscow that caused a positive reaction from international rating agencies, which changed the status of the Pioneer from “stable” to “positive”.
8. GC "Granel"
Where: Moscow
In the history of Granel Group, business is closely linked with politics. The company originated in Bashkortostan, where one of its founders, Andrei Nazarov, was an active political figure. He even headed the government of the republic for six years, and in September 2019 he was appointed deputy prime minister.
The second founder, Ilshat Nigmatullin, the company's CEO, continues to build.The company specializes in bringing to a residential type of long-term construction, which were abandoned by previous developers (Residential Complex "Estet", "Ecopark Nakhabino" and others), or payment of compensation in cases when it no longer makes sense to build (Residential Complex "Swan Lake").
7. GK FGC
Where: Moscow
FGC was born in 2005, when the larger businessmen, Deripaska and Kerimov, took away from the smaller businessmen, the Voronin family, the Glavmosstroy holding. And even family and political ties, on which the construction business of Russia stands and will stand for a long time, did not help the Voronins to keep a piece of cheese "in the beak".
However, Vladimir Voronin did not become discouraged and continued family traditions by creating the FGC company. Despite unfavorable forecasts, she managed to become one of the largest development companies in Russia.
6. GC "Airplane"
Where: Moscow
The plane took off just a few years ago, but from the very beginning it behaved assertively and aggressively. It differs both in the pace of construction and in price, offering square meters somewhere one-tenth cheaper than competitors.
Perhaps the secret of the company's success lies in the ability to negotiate with land owners. However, evil tongues claim that in fact the reason is that Samolet's partner is Maxim Vorobyov, the brother of Andrei Vorobyov, the current governor of the Moscow region.
5. Lingonberry
Where: Yekaterinburg
According to Forbes, the only Siberian company with the romantic name Brusnika is in fifth place in the top 10 most reliable Russian developers. It specializes, of course, in the Siberian direction, although the company had attempts to enter the Moscow market. Three years ago, she began building a residential area in the town of Vidnoye near Moscow.
And now the company is going to merge with the Finnish construction concern YIT. The resulting brainchild will not be engaged in the construction of houses, but exclusively in their maintenance.
4. Setl Group
Where: St. Petersburg
From the Siberian capital we are transferred to the northern capital, where the headquarters of the fourth place in the rating - Setl Group - is located.
Once the founder of the company, Maxim Shubarev, worked as a simple mechanic, who was taken under the wing of his father's friend, Anatoly Turchak, the director of the plant. And now Anatoly's son, Andrei, is the secretary of the council of the United Russia party.
It is not surprising that with such a background, Setl Group began to develop rapidly. It managed to reach 70% of the volume of the third place in the rating, the company LSR, whose connections were even more powerful.
3. LSR Group
Where: St. Petersburg
The stepfather of the head of the company, Andrei Molchanov, once worked as vice-rector of Leningrad University. And his assistant was Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin himself. Apparently, since then, a strong male friendship has arisen between Andrei and Vladimir, which, as you know, is the best guarantor of financial success in Russia.
In 1993, while still a student, Andrei got in a hurry and privatized the Stroydetal company, from which LSR had grown. In 2015, it was recognized as one of the backbone enterprises in Russia. She often got the tidbits of construction, such as the restoration of the Constantine Palace in St. Petersburg. Or an appetizing order for the restructuring of the residence of the presidential representative in the Northwestern District.
Of course, as Andrei says, the tenure of his stepfather Yuri as vice-governor of St. Petersburg has nothing to do with the orders received.
In addition to St. Petersburg, the company turned its gaze to Moscow, where its numerous branches got down to business. It was with one of the LSR subsidiaries that the sensational scandal in Bitsevsky Park was associated, where it was supposed to build about 350 sq. M. In place of trees and grass. m of real estate.
2. Etalon Group
Where: St. Petersburg
The history of the company began even before the perestroika, when the current head of the company, Vyacheslav Zarenkov (now one of the richest people in Russia) hurried up and took over a construction plant.
Since then, the Etalon Group has grown, developed and even dared to stick out its nose at the Moscow market, where, as you know, the waters are the most turbid and the fish are the fattest.Etalon bought out the Moscow developer Leader-Invest and firmly established itself in the Russian capital.
However, Zarenkov himself is slowly but surely retiring. Two years ago, he chose to get rid of a number of Etalon shares and put them into free circulation. Now he has only 5.7% of the shares left. Whether this is connected with the scandal that thundered at the same time on the London financial exchange - who knows.
Then the managers of Etalon, taking advantage of the introduction of new accounting standards, increased the company's profits by as much as 12%. On paper. But when traders realized that they, how to put it more delicately, were being inflated, the value of Etalon's shares fell by half.
1. GK PIK
Where: Moscow
In place of the leader among Russian developers is PIK, the largest construction magnate in Moscow and the Moscow region. The best real estate developer in Russia has been on the market for more than a quarter of a century, and all this time he has been fighting competitive battles with other large development companies - Morton and SU-155.
This battle ended quite recently - in 2016, when Morton was absorbed by PIK and SU-155 went bankrupt. There were reshuffles in PIK itself, where out of three large shareholders who owned approximately the same number of shares in the company, only one remained - billionaire Sergei Gordeev. Now 59.15% of the company's shares are concentrated in his hands.
Over the past years, the company has built more than 19 million square meters. m of residential premises. She prefers to work in Moscow and the region, and also - unexpectedly - in Baku.
There are also conflicts, the most recent of which thundered in Kuntsevo, where residents suddenly discovered that the real resettlement plan had nothing to do with what they were shown. Also, questions are raised by the sudden sale of PIK shares to VTB Bank. According to unverified information, the reason for this haste lies in an unexpected visit to the PIK office by security officials, who became very interested in the 85 million rubles that disappeared somewhere.
Whatever happens behind the scenes, PIK is by far the largest real estate developer in Russia. Moreover, the Russian government has decided to include the company in the “backbone enterprises of the Russian economy”. This means that even in bad years for the construction business, PIK will definitely stay afloat, at least at the expense of the budget.