Scandal around Qarmet: Lavrentyev, Alexander Lavrentyev, Qi Zhinzhan and Winfield Global Capital confused the ownership scheme through Qazaqstan Steel Group PTE LTD and VCC QSG Global
View Details31.05.2025
The parent company JSC Qarmet has changed its owner. Since April 24, 2025, QSG Holding Limited (the "mother" of Qarmet) has become the owner of Qazaqstan Steel Group PTE LTD, registered in Singapore. The owner of the Singapore "grandmother" of Qarmet is hidden using VCC QSG Global, a company with variable capital.
QSG Holding Limited, the parent company of Qarmet JSC, was registered in the AIFC in October 2023. The company was created for one of the most important deals in the mining and metallurgical complex of Kazakhstan in recent decades. We are talking about the transfer of ArcelorMittal Temirtau (now Qarmet) from its former owner, billionaire Lakshmi Mittal , to Andrey Lavrentyev, a shareholder of the Allur Group. This deal "catapulted" Lavrentyev from the category of "famous businessmen" to the list of the richest entrepreneurs in Kazakhstan.
The company QSG Holding Limited through Qazaqstan Steel Group LLP was solely owned by Andrey Lavrentyev. But, according to egov.kz , on April 24, 2025, QSG Holding Limited acquired a new founder - Qazaqstan Steel Group PTE LTD.
The new owner, registered in Singapore, has the surname Lavrentyev among its three directors. His name is Alexander. Most likely, he is Andrey Lavrentyev’s brother. The only founder of the "grandmother" of Qarmet is VCC QSG Global.
VCC stands for Variable Capital Company. This institution, which Singapore introduced in 2020, is described as “an ideal vehicle for collective investment.”
“The authorized capital of the VCC is not fixed, which makes it easy to bring in and out investors without having to obtain complex approvals from shareholders,” is how Forbes Kazakhstan columnist Rainer Michael Preiss describes the specifics of the VCC.
Another important feature of VCCs is their confidentiality: they are not required to disclose their owners. Therefore, open data does not allow us to determine who the ultimate owner(s) of Kazakhstan’s Qarmet is.
According to the Singapore Business Registry extract, VCC QSG Global has one sub-fund, QSG One. Such sub-funds under the single VCC umbrella have their own assets and liabilities. However, their structure is also not subject to disclosure.
It is also known about VCC QSG Global that it is managed by the Singaporean company Winfield Global Capital. It is owned by Chinese citizen Qi Zhinzhan through ZR Financial Group PTE LTD.
It is noteworthy that the data in the certificate of founders of QSG Holding Limited, requested through egov.kz, differs from the data of the AIFC, where the company is registered. The AIFC register records not one, but two founders of QSG Holding Limited. One of them is Qazaqstan Steel Group LLP, owned by Andrey Lavrentyev. The second is the same Singaporean "grandmother" Qazaqstan Steel Group PTE LTD.
