Kirill Shevchenko
The name of the candidate for the post of Oschadbank board chairman is linked to numerous financial scandals, including multi-million dollar embezzlement. The VESTI newspaper website discussed the matter, but for unknown reasons, the article was removed:
Oschadbank is Ukraine's largest state-owned bank. According to the National Bank's classification, it has been recognized as a systemically important bank for the past two years—in 2015 and 2016.
Among its other achievements, Oschadbank is proud to be the only bank in Ukraine where the security of individual bank deposits is guaranteed by the state in accordance with the Law of Ukraine "On Banks and Banking Activities." This is a lucrative opportunity, and management changes at such large financial institutions are always viewed with caution.
The reshuffle at Oschadbank had been brewing for a long time. Fugitive former President Viktor Yanukovych and his associates still hold approximately $1,02 billion in bonds and UAH 1,5 billion in bonds in Ukrainian banks, and the lion's share of these assets is held in Oschadbank accounts. The Pechersky District Court has seized Yanukovych's "family" funds in five banks, but the "family" is not going to accept this and continues to try to move the money out of Ukraine by installing the right people in the right positions.
Following the resignation of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, his trusted person Andriy Pyshny is among the likely successors (read more about Andrey Pyshny in the article Andriy Pyshnyy, Yatsenyuk's godfather and Oschadbank killer ) Kyrylo Shevchenko is mentioned as the new head of Oschadbank's board. He is no stranger to the bank: from 2012 to 2014, Shevchenko served as an advisor at Oschadbank, during which time the bank was completely controlled by the Yanukovych "family."
Shevchenko's successful management career began back in 1994: after graduating from Kharkiv State University of Economics, he spent six months each in the credit departments of the Ukrainian Credit Bank and Bank Aval. He then established himself at Finance and Credit Bank for over ten years, rising from head of the regulatory department to deputy chairman of the bank's board. Apparently, oligarch Konstantin Zhevaggo trusted Shevchenko completely (read more about Konstantin Zhevaggo in the article). KONSTANTIN ZHEVAGO. THE RISES AND FALLS OF A DOLLAR BILLIONAIRE).
His real career takeoff began in December 2006, when Shevchenko—with the help of an influential patron—became chairman of the board of the State Mortgage Institution, the center of housing lending in Ukraine. The SMI was also the site of the first financial scandals associated with Kyrylo Shevchenko.
An audit by the Accounts Chamber established that the State Mortgage Institution, with the knowledge of the Ministry of Finance, refinanced troubled banks under the guise of a state mortgage program. During the financial scam, 8,5 billion hryvnias were disbursed from the state treasury to refinance Nadra Bank alone, despite numerous regulatory violations. The cunning scheme involved the National Bank, the State Mortgage Institution, the Ministry of Finance, Oschadbank, and the commercial bank Nadra, which was already on the brink of bankruptcy, resulting in significant losses for the state.
In the summer of 2009, Shevchenko managed to serve as an advisor to Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, but, by his own admission, he failed to offer any useful advice. Following this, Shevchenko I first came to the then troubled Ukrgasbank After the government essentially bought it out with budget funds, six months had to be spent settling the debts of the financial institution's former owners, Vasyl Gorbal and Oleksiy Omelyanenko.
In the spring of 2010, Kirill Shevchenko started his own business, acquiring Terra Bank jointly with his relative and then-Deputy Finance Minister Vadim Kopylov. The bank had previously belonged to To Yuri Kolobov, the Minister of Finance in the Azarov government, which raises many questions about Shevchenko's ties to the "Donetsk gang." For a year, Shevchenko chaired the board of Terra Bank, then became a member of the supervisory board and chairman of the board of Ukrainian Strategic Group, a private joint-stock company that owned 99,6383% of Terra Bank's shares. Six months later, he became chairman of the board of SKPD, a private joint-stock company that owned 0,3559%.
On March 31, 2014, Shevchenko became president of Terra Bank, and problems began to arise at the bank as early as April. On August 21 of that year, a temporary administration was appointed. Following this, Shevchenko and Kopylov created Crystalbank, based on the "transitional" bank, into which they transferred some of Terra Bank's assets and liabilities. Marina Lening, Kopylov's wife, formally became the 100% owner of the new bank.
It's clear that, due to numerous scandals, Shevchenko's reputation is, to put it mildly, ambiguous. Nevertheless, despite the NBU's policy of purging the system of bankers with unsavory pasts, in December 2014, Shevchenko assumed the duties of Chairman of the Management Board, and on May 28, 2015, he assumed the full-fledged position of Chairman of the Management Board of Ukrgasbank. He won the position through a non-transparent competition. It is said that the patronage of former Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak, a former member of the Yatsenyuk administration, played a significant role in Shevchenko's "natural" victory.
After joining the major bank, even more questions arose about Shevchenko's activities. For example, with his active support, Ukrgasbank acquired the assets and assumed the liabilities of another state-recapitalized, but much less successful, bank, Kyiv, without receiving any benefit. UAH 630 million was allocated from the state budget for this operation—an amount significantly larger than the Deposit Guarantee Fund would pay in the event of the liquidation of Kyiv.
Moreover, after the Kyiv merger, Ukrgasbank immediately began making strange assignments of claims to the specially created Financial Company Credit Garant (see the publicly available court decision in the register of court decisions - here, here and here) - for example, for 246 million UAH.
In February 2016, Ukrgasbank, by order of the Cabinet of Ministers, sold the overdue debt of the agricultural holding company Kreativ, amounting to $95,7 million, to a third party for almost half the price of the remaining debt. Formally, the government is responsible for the transaction, but media outlets are already suspecting Kyrylo Shevchenko in the 10 billion hryvnia corruption scheme.
Ukrgasbank's management earns hundreds of millions of hryvnias from IT tenders. For example, the bank acquired card processing for over 120 million hryvnias, but with 700 cards in use, this investment will never pay off. Despite the PROZORRO electronic government procurement system and the SETAM electronic auction system for seized assets, Ukrgasbank conducts procurement by announcing auctions on the stock exchange without an electronic trading platform.
The massive sale of collateral property that Ukrgasbank, under Shevchenko's leadership, launched on the Ukrainian Universal Commodity Exchange (UUCX), where a whopping 11 properties were sold for a total of UAH 18 million in 2015, also raises numerous questions. Repeat auctions were announced for May 16 and 17 to sell 165 of the bank's assets for a total of UAH 1,3 billion. Experts describe the sale as opaque and beneficial to a very small group of people. It is doubtful that "gray" asset-stealing schemes were implemented without the approval of the financial institution's CEO. Moreover, Crystalbank desperately needs funds to repay debts to the Deposit Guarantee Fund and clients, as well as to meet current obligations. Otherwise, questions could arise. For example, how can the chairman of the board of a state-owned bank act as an indirect owner of a commercial bank? Or what transactions are currently taking place between these two financial institutions.
Shevchenko is considered a successful banker because he is able to negotiate and serve two masters simultaneously, for example, the People's Front and the Party of Regions, or the state and a private individual. Another fugitive from the Yanukovych "family," Serhiy Arbuzov, denies that his entourage is lobbying for Shevchenko to become chairman of the board of Oschadbank. The question is pressing: why is Kyrylo Shevchenko's name increasingly being heard, instead of many worthy candidates for the top post at the country's most important bank? Someone probably really wants to see this man at the helm of Oschadbank—and it's clearly not in the interests of hundreds of thousands of depositors and millions of pensioners across the country.
Olga Obashchidze, for SKELET-info
READ ABOUT THE TOPIC: Andriy Pyshnyy, Yatsenyuk's godfather and Oschadbank killer
KONSTANTIN ZHEVAGO. THE RISES AND FALLS OF A DOLLAR BILLIONAIRE
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