These are Verona Capital, KDP, RSK, and ShUZ. These firms replaced the companies Verona, the Preschool Catering Plant, Russotscapital, and Shkolnik-Yuz, which were previously owned by Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.
All four companies were registered in March 2024, less than a year after Prigozhin’s death. They were registered to Sergey Efimchuk, Nikolai Kuznetsov, Dmitry Aliev, and Olga Rusishvili, who had previously worked at Grandtitle.
The largest shareholder of Grandtitle is Ragimov. The remaining stakes are distributed among his Azerbaijani business partners God Nisanov and Zarah Iliev.
Of the 39 tenders, Verona Capital won 12 worth 38.2 billion rubles, KDP won seven worth 29.1 billion, RSK won nine worth 34.8 billion, and ShUZ won 11 worth 24.6 billion rubles. Ilgam Ragimov studied with Putin at the law faculty of Leningrad State University, now St. Petersburg State University, and is currently an honorary doctor of the university.
In January, a monument to him was installed at the university. Ragimov entered business in 1999, when Putin was appointed Prime Minister of Russia, and in 2014 Forbes estimated his fortune at $500 million.
According to this account, his main income came from stakes in the Sadovod market, the Ukraina hotel, as well as the European and Panorama shopping centers. According to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Ragimov, together with Nikolai Egorov and Viktor Khmarin, took part in financing the construction of Putin’s palace near Gelendzhik, and the company Investment Solutions spent 7 billion rubles on it. In a 2010 interview, Ragimov himself said that he and Putin had been “friends for forty years” and that this relationship aroused envy among his enemies.
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