BUSINESSMAN SEÁN Quinn’s group is investing €100 million in a property development in the Russian republic of Tatarstan.

Quinn Group’s property development division is building a storage and distribution centre in the city of Kazan, which is the capital of Tatarstan.

While the group, which Mr Quinn and his family control, has not said how much it is investing in the project, the figure is understood to be in the region of €100 million.

The country’s prime minister, Rustam Minnikhanov, is in the Republic as part of a delegation from the Russian federation, and referred to the development yesterday during a function organised by business group, Ibec.

Quinn Group is due to officially open the development early next week. The centre, or logistics park, will cater for local and multinational businesses.

Tatarstan is in eastern European Russia, located between the Ural mountains, the Volga river and a number of its tributaries. Its capital is about 800km east of Moscow.

The country is oil rich and a number of key pipelines which supply petrochemicals to western Russia and on to other European countries run across its territory.

It has well developed transport, roads and shipping lanes along the Volga system. Consequently it acts as a hub within the federation and the region as a whole.

It is one of the wealthier members of the Russian federation and has been a traditional crossroads for east-west trade for centuries.

Quinn Group’s interests span cement production, manufacturing, energy, insurance, financial services and property investment.

The Irish business is active in a number of centres in the Russian federation and Ukraine, where it has other logistics parks, office developments and retail properties.

The group was in the news recently when it emerged that it had lost about €1 billion on contracts for difference (CFDs) trades in Anglo Irish Bank, which the Government nationalised in January.

Mr Quinn publicly acknowledged the loss recently, but said that the group was capable of absorbing it.