The company that took over the assets of the insolvent bank turned out to be the mortgage holder of Yanukovych's "helipad."
The National Police of Ukraine has launched an investigation into the asset stripping of the notorious Radical Bank, whose liquidation began last November. According to DS, criminal proceedings were initiated in December of last year. However, only now have the investigative team been granted access to notarized documents shedding light on the agreements between the bank and the asset management company ARB Investments, concluded on July 9 of last year. It was on that day, as DS previously reported, that the National Bank declared Radical Bank insolvent, after which it was placed under temporary administration.
Police suspect the management of Radical Bank and ARB Investments Asset Management Company of abuse of office and large-scale embezzlement. Specifically, investigators established that the management of the two companies, aware of the temporary administration, entered into agreements to assign claims under dozens of loan agreements with the financial institution. One of these agreements, in particular, was concluded between Radical Bank and the Kyiv-based company Quintyre in 2013 for UAH 30 million (this company is considered close to the former head of the Donetsk Regional State Administration, Serhiy Taruta). The loan was secured by a project to build an office and shopping center on Spasskaya Street and premises on Yaroslaviv Val in Kyiv, as well as a stake in the company Perspektiva Residence.
In addition to Quintyre's debt, ARB Investments Asset Management Company inherited from Radical Bank the right to claim funds from more than two dozen borrowers and their guarantors, including another of Taruta's enterprises, the Dnipropetrovsk Pipe Plant. According to the investigation, the new creditor acquired assets totaling almost UAH 770 million. Meanwhile, the debtors' liabilities, as specified in the assignment agreement, amounted to less than UAH 350 million. "This clearly indicates that the individuals who produced copies of the supposed assignment agreement and its appendices attempted to create the impression that such a transaction was legal and sufficient to warrant approval by the bank's supervisory board, while in fact transferring assets worth a significantly larger amount to ARB Investments Asset Management Company," the National Police concluded.
ARB Investments, whose accounts at Diamantbank, Prominvestbank, and Apex Bank were frozen in late January as part of the aforementioned criminal case, is a rather peculiar company. It was founded in the spring of 2013 by Tandem Agro, a little-known company registered in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka specializing in grain and animal feed trading. The founder of this entity was Naston Trade Ltd, an offshore company registered in Belize. ARB Investments lists Tandem Agro director Andrey Timofeev, registered in the dormitory of the Bolshevik plant on Vyborgskaya Street, as its beneficiary. Tandem Agro itself, however, indicates that its sole owner is an even less well-known citizen, Oleksandr Nosenko, from the town of Polohy in the Zaporizhzhia region. All this gives reason to suspect that both of them are nothing more than front men.
Inna Buyanova, who previously worked as chief accountant at Altera Asset Management, was among the co-founders of ARB Investments.
The list of this structure's largest clients included primarily companies from the Donbas region, including the DRFC association and the Ukrainian Business Bank, both of which were linked to Oleksandr Yanukovych. Furthermore, Buyanova, who moved from Donetsk to Kyiv several years ago, recently surfaced as the director of Inkom 2013, a company registered to Oleg Kudelya, who had been a member of Radical Bank's supervisory board since 2013. At that time, this financial institution was already considered a "family" one, serving clients such as the Road of the Future foundation of Lyubov Polezhai, Viktor Yanukovych's mistress, and Mako Holding, owned by his eldest son.
But perhaps the most important fact confirming ARB Investments's closeness to the family of the former president who fled to Russia is the fact that, as DS has discovered, this company currently holds a mortgage on the notorious "Yanukovych helipad"—the Parkovy convention and exhibition center. Its owner, Amadeus Co., registered to the British firm Fineroad Business LLP, is also commonly associated with the former president's family. And if the police don't follow the example of the Prosecutor General's Office in pretending to conduct a "thorough investigation" and actually take the said company into their custody, they have a good chance of securing the return of the expropriated assets to Radical Bank, which is currently effectively under state control through the Deposit Guarantee Fund for Individuals. This includes the aforementioned Parkovy center, where its owner, despite the seizure of its assets, continues to profit right under the noses of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General's Office.
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