‘Our company has an unresolved issue with Mr. Andrew Welch, who owns a 50% shareholding in Aston Construction Company and Aston Group Management Company. Mr. Welch would like us to buy out his shareholding at a very high price, but we are currently unprepared to accept such an offer. This is why Mr. Welch took a number of measures targeted at persuading us to buy, so to say,’ Aston Construction Company’s Chairman of the Supervisory Board Vyacheslav Trapeznikov said to an UrBC reporter.

‘We did our best to come to a ‘peace settlement’, for instance, by offering to buy out his share at a certain price next year, but Mr. Welch only wanted the purchase to take place this year, and the sum in question was twice the number we’d proposed. We were therefore unable to come to an agreement,’ Trapeznikov added.

‘Mr. Welch no longer wishes to be our shareholder, but we just can’t afford to have him sail off as comfortably as he’d like. The company simply does not have the money needed to buy out this shareholding. Besides, it is illegal under the current legislation to ‘rock the boat’ when a business is in financial trouble. We mean to take the case to court and we are positive that we’ll win it,’ the executive observed.