Kaufman-Granovsky and their business interests: airports, vodka, cigarettes, banks, hotels
Ukrainian business is rife with "interesting" individuals with chequered pasts. The business tandem of Boris Kaufman and Oleksandr Granovsky is no exception. During Viktor Yanukovych's presidency, they were the so-called "overseers" of Ukraine's Boryspil, Odesa, and Simferopol airports, which accounted for 75% of all passenger air traffic in Ukraine. So, what has changed for these businessmen in the two years since Yanukovych's flight, and how did they manage to gain the trust of the "Family" without being "Donetsk natives"?
Kaufman-Granovsky: Who are they?
Alexander Granovsky
Oleksandr Gennadievich was born in July 1972 in Uman. He earned his law degree from the Mechnikov Odessa State University. He later graduated from the Academy of Public Administration under the President of Ukraine. He began pursuing business in his youth, just as the USSR collapsed. His entrepreneurial success allowed him to become commercial director at the Odessa-based company Evas at the age of 22. From there, he began developing his own projects: in 1997, he founded Montazhgorstroy; in 1998, he founded VIP Odessa and the Kashtan trading house.
In 2002, he transferred his entire business to his father, Gennady Granovsky. This move was linked to his election to the sixth convocation of the Verkhovna Rada on the list of the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine. In 2006, he failed in his attempt to gain a seat on the NeTAK bloc's list. That same year, he returned to business, joining his partner, Boris Kaufman, in a project to create the Myagkov alcohol trading house in the Russian Federation. In 2008, they divested themselves of the alcohol business, selling Myagkov to Russian entrepreneurs and the Odessa Champagne Factory (brands: Odessa, L'Oddesika, and Henry Rederer) to Italians.
Alexander Granovsky used the proceeds to create VertexUnited in partnership with Boris Kaufman. This company's ownership included the Bristol, Londonskaya, and President Hotel hotels; assets of the Finbank enterprise; and the company purchased the assets from UMH (the former firm of the head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine). Boris Lozhkina) magazine and website "Focus".
Boris Kaufman
Boris Rafailovich was born in November 1973 in Odessa. While studying law at the Mechnikov Odessa State University, he met his future business partner, Alexander Granovsky. However, fate did not immediately bring them together. In 1995, he was developing the catering business on large cruise ships (Olvia, Taras Shevchenko, and Shota Rustaveli). After just two years in this field, he founded the company "K&O," which subsequently acquired the ships "Olvia" and "Shota Rustaveli," reselling them profitably to international companies in 2000 and 2001.
In 2001, he took over as chairman of the supervisory board of the 1st Distillery. He created the Myagkov brand, which within four months of its inception captured over 5% of Ukrainian consumers of mid-priced alcoholic beverages.
Just a year later, Kaufman became the head of the Overline Corporation. Its main assets became the 1st Distillery, the Odessa Champagne Factory, the Izmail Winery, and the Goldenline Trading House. In 2003, he became a major shareholder in Finbank.
In 2014, he ceased to be a shareholder in Finbank. According to media reports, Vertex United wiped out its holdings in the bank's authorized capital. Today, managers from Granovsky and Kaufman's companies control the Boryspil and Odesa international airports.
Odessa Airport
In 2009, the Kaufman-Granovskyi duo managed to privatize a major dredging company, Chornomortekhflot, through fraudulent means. Over the next three years, they transformed it into a private joint-stock company and managed to earn over 350 million hryvnias (not a bad purchase, huh?). Having earned some money, they embarked on "expansion." In 2011, the businessmen received permission from the Odessa City Council to reconstruct the Odessa International Airport. This effectively paved the way for its privatization. Today, the state owns only 25% of the airport, with the rest belonging to Odessa Airport Development. According to sources, they secured this lucrative stake after a personal call from Viktor Yanukovych.
According to the agreement between the authorities and the business community, in exchange, Odessa Airport Development was to build a new airport terminal and reconstruct the runway (these changes were expected to cost $180 million). A couple of months later, Kaufman-Granovsky's managers also joined the board and supervisory board of Simferopol Airport, and one of their subsidiaries, Van den Aker Holding (Holland), won the tender for the reconstruction of Crimea's main airport.
In mid-summer 2013, with the active support of the Kaufman-Granovskyi duo, a certain Suren Sardanyan, who had close ties to Oleksandr Vilkul, then Vice Prime Minister, took over the management of the Odessa Airport. At the same time, Oleksiy Kochanov, a member of Oleksandr Granovskyi's management team, took over the management of the Odessa Airport Development company. Just a month later, the state-owned Ukreximbank (one of the main instruments for embezzling public funds during the "Yanukovych era" [ed.]) decided to provide the Odessa Airport with a $30 million loan, secured by state guarantees. This money, of course, was never repaid.
In early autumn 2013, the airport's management announced a tender for the reconstruction. Following a shadow competition, the company "Spetsrembud" won the 1,63 billion UAH tender. Officially, it had no connection to the Kaufman-Granovskyi companies, but a detailed review of the documents revealed that it was registered at 4a Shevchenko Avenue in Odesa. Finbank and several companies controlled by the duo are also located at this address. Any doubts about Spetsrembud's ownership were finally dispelled when it was discovered that, according to the tender terms, bidders were required to provide 16 million UAH collateral from Finbank. Such a "knight's move."
With the arrival of the new government, the Odessa regional prosecutor's office attempted to challenge the tender, but Kaufman resolved this issue with a single visit to the presidential administration. Petro PoroshenkoThere he spoke with his old friend Boris Lozhkin, from whom he had bought the magazine "Focus" a couple of years ago.
Boris Lozhkin and Petro Poroshenko
After this visit, the prosecutor's office lost the case against Spetsrembud and even declined to appeal. I wonder how much it cost the Kaufman-Granovsky tandem to resolve this issue. Knowing Boris Lozhkin and his machinations, which we wrote about in the article "Boris Lozhkin: How to Deceive the State of $160 Million and Become Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine," it was clearly no small sum.
What happened during the tender trial (in simple terms from ARGUMENT):
Kaufman-Granovsky and their business interests: airports, vodka, cigarettes, banks, hotels
Kaufman-Granovsky: Boryspil Airport
In the summer of 2013, Oleksiy Kochanov, a manager from the Kaufman-Granovsky group, was appointed CEO of Boryspil Airport. Immediately afterward, all rights to provide services at Ukraine's main airport were transferred to Granovsky and Kaufman's companies, including, for example, Airport Handling. Interestingly, Kochanov brought Serhiy Gombolevskyi, with whom he had worked in Odessa, into Boryspil's management team. His wife, Natalia Gombolevskaya, became another member of the "team." This entire "brotherhood" ensured that all airport services (handling, duty-free shopping, catering, etc.) were concentrated in the companies owned by the tandem.
Following Viktor Yanukovych's flight from Ukraine, Maidan activists demanded that Oleksiy Kochanov be removed from his position as Boryspil's CEO. This was ordered by the revolutionary Minister of Infrastructure. Maxim Bourbak Kochanov was fired, and Sergei Gombolevsky was appointed in his place. Yes, the very same man who rose to the Boryspil leadership thanks to Kochanov and is forever indebted to him and his patrons. But here's the rub: he's no different from his predecessor and was one of the managers who carried out the will of the "Family."
Today, Gombolevsky is a puppet of Kaufman and Granovsky. He brought his wife, Natalia, back into the airport's employ, making her chief economist. Seeing such a person in the airport's management team is astonishing. No one even seems bothered by the fact that he (along with his wife) was once fired from Boryspil Airport for financial fraud. Furthermore, he was once the executive director of Odessa Airport, a company controlled by the same Kaufman and Granovsky.
Almost two years have passed since Viktor Yanukovych fled Ukraine, but the corruption and fraud schemes launched with his assistance are still active, earning scammers considerable profits. One such scheme is total control over Ukrainian airports. Today, as during the "Proffesor" era, they are controlled by Kaufman-Granovsky. And judging by the fact that no one is trying to push them away from this control, they have managed to reach an agreement with the new government, and for the foreseeable future, everything will remain as before. That's the story.
PS: Recently, the following fact exploded in the Ukrainian information space: On January 12, 2016, at 5 a.m. (!), “activists” of unknown origin staged pickets outside the offices of Megapolis-Ukraine, Ukraine’s largest tobacco retailer. (Read more about Megapolis-Ukraine in the article Megapolis-Ukraine. Fiscals do not note the multimillion-dollar destruction of the Tyutun monopolyMP Serhiy Vysotsky (formerly a journalist and editor of the LIGA.net portal, created with Western grants) acted as the informational "crowbar" of this situation. He was the first to publish information about the picketing. The former journalist was unexpectedly "outraged" by the fact that Megapolis-Ukraine was founded under Yanukovych by the Russian company Megapolis, which is owned by Russian citizen Igor Kisayev. According to Vysotsky, Kisayev, through his charitable foundation Monolith, is a sponsor of the FSB.
The staged and paid nature of these pickets is obvious. Sergei Vysotsky's participation in this project is surprising, as it's immediately clear that someone has "paid him off" (either financially or "out of friendship").
A piquant aspect of this situation is the fact that Kaufman-Granovsky controls 50% of Megapolis-Ukraine, which puts them on par with Igor Kisayev.
Megapolis-Ukraine itself officially states that it is being subjected to an information and raider attack.
Dmitry Samofalov, for skelet.org
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