Strabag says it tried to buy up stake held by Oleg Deripaska who has been linked to Vladimir Putin
HS2 contractor Strabag has moved to distance itself from a company owned by sanctioned Russian industrialist Oleg Deripaska, cancelling its dividend payments to his business.
The Austrian civil engineering giant – part of a joint venture carrying out £2bn worth of tunnelling contracts outside London – is 28% owned by Rasperia Trading Ltd.
Rasperia is in turn owned by Deripaksa, who last week had his UK assets frozen – along with six others – by the UK government, which described him as a “pro-Kremlin oligarch”.
News of his involvement with Strabag has thrown the spotlight on the tunneller, which had a turnover of £12.2bn and a pre-tax profit of £507m in 2020, as well as HS2 with the issue threatening to become an embarrassment to the taxpayer-funded scheme.
Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Green told Building she wrote to the chief executive of HS2, Mark Thurston, as well as transport secretary Grant Shapps late last week after Building first revealed Deripaska’s involvement in the project.
She told the pair to terminate existing contracts with the civil engineer on account of Deripaska’s stake.
She said: “I am deeply concerned that HS2 Ltd are doing business with a firm so closely linked to someone who has been sanctioned by the government. As a consequence of this, one of Putin’s close associates appears to be profiting from UK taxpayers.”
But today, Strabag’s core shareholder, the Haselsteiner Family Private Foundation, attempted to defuse the crisis telling the company that it had terminated its syndicate agreement with Rasperia Trading Ltd, after saying that efforts to acquire the latter’s shares failed.
The agreement had been in place since 2007, covering the nomination of supervisory board members and the coordination of voting results at the company’s general meeting.
Strabag chief executive Thomas Birtel welcomed the steps taken by the foundation and said the company’s management were “prepared to take all legally possible measures to avert any harm to the company”.
He added: “In view of the sanctions currently imposed by the UK and Canada, this refers in particular to the payment of dividends.”
Strabag’s management board has decided to wind up the company’s business in Russia, which accounts for just 0.3% of revenue.
In a separate statement, a Strabag spokesperson told Building: “We can confirm that our management board today announced that it has suspended any dividend payments from going to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and that Strabag will wind up its activities in Russia. Today’s announcement also included an information from our core shareholder, Haselsteiner family foundation, that it has terminated the syndicate agreement.” But it added: “The management board has no legal means to change the shareholder structure.”
It said that it had “initiated and financed extensive aid measures, especially in the most affected [by the influx of refugees] group countries of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Moldova”.
Strabag is part of the SCS joint venture, which also includes Costain and Skanska, and which is carrying out HS2 tunnelling work near London.
Costain boss Alex Vaughan told Building last week that Strabag remained a part of the consortium and said there were “no plans” to stand them down.
In a statement, HS2 said: “We welcome the news that the board of Strabag has today announced that it has suspended any dividend payments from going to Oleg Deripaska. As a result of this decision, Deripaska will not be receiving any taxpayers’ money from HS2. HS2 Ltd continues to operate a rigorous procurement process that ensures all procurements are conducted in line with Public Procurement Regulations, in accordance with government policy.”
Green, who won last year’s Chesham and Amersham by-election, added: “[HS2 and the secretary of state should] conduct a thorough audit of the stakeholders in all companies contracted to work on publicly funded projects.”
Deripaska also owns 45% of mining company En+ Group, which has had its shares suspended by the London Stock Exchange earlier this month.
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