The Creative Group has been transferred to a new key owner, developer Artur Grants, who is close to the Prime Minister's close friend, MP Andrei Ivanchuk.
On September 4, the company officially announced that the family of the Kirovohrad businessman Stanislava Berezkina no longer owns its main enterprise, the Kreativ Industrial Group, the second-largest oil and fat holding company in Ukraine after Andriy Verevskyi's Kernel. "The founders of the Kreativ Industrial Group have withdrawn from the shareholder group. 80% of the oil extraction business, as well as the production of fats, margarines, and spreads, were transferred to other owners in July 2015," the statement reads, citing Maksym Berezkin, the former chairman of Kreativ's supervisory board (son of Stanislav Berezkin, a member of the Verkhovna Rada and a member of the Renaissance Party group). He also clarified that the new owners will also own the Kreativ brand, as it is closely linked to the oil and fat business.
The sellers are not disclosing who has assumed control of the group, which is currently Ukraine's second-largest sunflower processor, sunflower oil exporter, and margarine producer. Certain conclusions can be drawn from the changes in the composition of two of its key structures in Ukraine—the management company, PJSC Creative Group, and the main agricultural exporter, PJSC Creative. For example, in early August, Creative's CEO was replaced: Nurbek Chonbashev became the new head of the company, replacing Oleksandr Boyko, who had led the company since 2011. Since July of last year, he had served as the head of the legal department of the investment real estate department at BTA Bank, a financial institution controlled by Kazakhstan's Kazkommertsbank and its largest shareholder, Kenges Rakishev (son-in-law of Kazakhstan's Defense Minister Imangali Tasmaganbetov). At the end of August, changes also occurred in the board of PJSC Creative Group. The aforementioned Nurbek Chonbashev became a member of the board of this company, the position of deputy chairman of the board was given to another former BTA Bank employee, Andrei Yezersky, and finally, another place on the board was given to Sergei Alexandrov, a lawyer for the company "Medical Centers "Medisvit" (which was also previously close to BTA Bank).
As of April of this year, the debt of PJSC Kreativ alone to banks exceeded the astronomical mark of UAH 14 billion.
However, BTA Bank representatives claim they have no connection to the deal with Kreativ. "The individuals mentioned are no longer bank employees, and the bank itself is in no way involved in the purchase," Roman Marchenko, senior partner at Ilyashev & Partners, the law firm that services BTA Bank, told DS.
A DS source at a competitor of Kreativ confirmed this, stating that the buyer was a group of investors including Rysbek Toktomushev, former chairman of BTA Bank's supervisory board (he held this position from 2009 to the end of 2014). Toktomushev is currently managing partner of Marka-Capital, a company specializing in crisis management and business reorganization. "But Rysbek is not the main buyer," the source added, noting that Belarusian entrepreneur Artur Grants has become Kreativ's key owner.
Like Toktomushev, agribusiness is not Granz's core business. His primary focus is development. Granz's network includes BF Group, a logistics company. Its assets include BF-Terminal, which provides customs handling, warehousing, and logistics services near Boryspil Airport. Granz is considered close to Andriy Ivanchuk, head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Economic Policy and deputy head of the People's Front parliamentary faction, who is a longtime friend of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
The Kirovohrad-based group is currently in a deep crisis. As of April of this year, Kreativ PJSC alone's debt to banks exceeded the astronomical mark of UAH 14 billion. The company, which suffered losses of almost UAH 4,5 billion in the first quarter of this year alone against revenues of UAH 1 billion, is clearly unable to service this debt. Therefore, the new owner will have to work hard to restructure the debts of its acquisition. And this is where Artur Granz's connections may come in handy, as Kreativ's main creditors are Ukrainian state-owned banks. Specifically, Oschadbank, headed by Andriy Pyshnyy, another friend of Arseniy Yatsenyuk. (Read more about him: Andriy Pyshnyy, Yatsenyuk's godfather and Oschadbank killer) (PJSC "Creative" owes him more than 6,3 billion UAH) and Ukreximbank, to which the company owes more than 2 billion UAH.
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