At once two members of the board of directors of LSR Group JSC have sold their stakes in the St Petersburg-based real-estate developer. Executive director of the company Evgeny Yatsyshin owned 0.31% of ordinary shares, whereas chairman of the board Igor Levitin - 0.35%. Estimated market value of the assets is about 372 million roubles ($12.9m) and 420 million roubles ($14.5m) respectively.      

LSR’s officials said that it was a private deal and both CEOs will continue their work for the company and have no doubts in the company’s future. Yatsyshin and Levitin have not disclosed neither the price nor the buyer of the shares. The analysts think the shares might be purchased either by the group’s founder Andrey Molchanov (with an estimated wealth of $3.2b) or his uncle - member of the board of directors Mikhail Romanov ($0.2b).

The timely deal saw the shares on the rise. Aleksandr Ignatyuk, analytic department chairman of Energocapital company, said: “Closely held or optional shares are bad instruments for principal moves. They might have been sold to get profit from current market situation”.

Notably, Igor Levit and Evgeny Yatsyshin were fellow students of Andrey Mochalov. They are the only mates who retained positions on the board. In January 2011 Georgy Bogachov and Georgy Vedernikov, in the past - students the faculty of economics of St Petersburg State University, left the board of directors. All of them founded the company «from the scratch».    

The analysts observe that Aleksandr Vakhmistrov has strengthen his position in the company. According to vice-president of Union of the developers of St Petersburg Aleksey Belousov, after Vakhmistrov joined LSR Group last year the balance of power swayed towards him. Belousov said: “Indeed such well-known, powerful and famous man will сhange the balance of power in the company”.

Russian mafia portal (rumafia.com) reference: As of December 31, 2011, 62,2% equity in Group LSR JSC belonged to Streetlink Ltd. (owned by Andrey Molchanov), 4,7% - to Mikhail Romanov, 1% - to the company’s management.