Pavel Ryabikin
UkrRudProm has learned that Pavlo Ryabikin may become the next Minister of Infrastructure. This candidacy is being actively lobbied for by the president's partner, Ihor Kononenko. According to our information, this is the main reason for his resignation. Andrey Pivovarsky.
Let's briefly recap the candidate's biography. Pavlo Ryabikin is a member of parliament of the 3rd, 4th, and 7th convocations. From July 22, 2014, to September 15, 2015, he was deputy chairman of the Kyiv City State Administration. As Ryabikin himself stated at the time of his resignation, "I left my post not for political reasons, but for personal ones." He added that he was in a hospital abroad.
In connection with Pavel's expected appointment to the post of Minister of Infrastructure, the greatest interest is not even the miracle of his prompt recovery, but the period of his work as Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications, who oversaw the maritime industry (March 2005 - August 2006). A rare case when, during a change of minister (Evgeniya Chervonenko(Of Viktor Bondar) the deputy for such a lucrative area as ports and the fleet has not changed.
Shortly before his dismissal from the post of Deputy Minister Ryabikin Pavel Borisovich agreed on joint activity agreement No. 18/TX dated July 28, 2006 between the Kherson Sea Trade Port, the Austrian Allgemeine Beteiligungsverwaltungs-und Handels GmbH (ABH GmbH) and the private enterprise “Stevedoring Company “Kherson Sea Terminal” (Kyiv).
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The purpose of the joint venture agreement was to pool the parties' contributions without creating a legal entity for a period of ten years. Within a week of the agreement's state registration, the port was required to contribute approximately 90% of its assets (portal cranes, warehouses, handling facilities, land use rights, etc.). The port's assets were valued at UAH 27,779 million. The other parties to the agreement were required to invest UAH 41,152 million, in four stages: UAH 505 within two months, UAH 2,02 million by the end of 2006, UAH 15,150 million in 2007, and UAH 23,477 million in 2008. Essentially, this amounted to a covert privatization of the port.
But that's not all the icing on the cake of this agreement. Immediately after the contract was signed, the private operator began receiving 60% of the profits. That is, even before the planned $8 million investment was made.
As the weekly Kommentarii reported at the time, ABH GmbH was registered in Vienna in 2001 with a share capital of €70. The founders were Julius Schlossman (€25,2) and Borys and Tamara Podolsky (€22,4 each). In 2003–2004, ABH GmbH restored the filter paper factory of the destroyed Kherson Pulp and Paper Mill, modernized production, and revived the production of technical filter papers for oil, fuel, and air filtration.
The Kherson Sea Terminal Stevedoring Company is registered in Kyiv's Pecherskyi district at 18/7 Kutuzova Street. It is effectively a subsidiary of the Austrian company, as its authorized capital of UAH 50,5 is wholly owned by ABH GmbH.
An interesting detail: in July 2006, it was the paper mill that won the tender to purchase the port dormitory. With the market value of the four-story building in the city center at 2 million hryvnias and two bidders, the property was sold for 280 hryvnias.
At the time, ABH GmbH and all its affiliates were linked to then-Russian citizen Vadim Novinsky. The port's staff even wrote a letter to the oligarch asking him not to interfere with the company's operations, after which the Prosecutor General's Office challenged the contract in court. After two years of legal proceedings, the "investors" were persuaded to drop their demands. None of this would have happened if not for the intervention of a cunning Deputy Minister of Transport.
In 2010, ABH GmbH became known beyond the transportation community. On May 26, at a press conference titled "Vladimir Boyko Sold Ilyich Iron and Steel Works of Mariupol," ABH GmbH co-owner Boris Podolsky and former CEO of the Black Sea Shipyard Ilya Gorn (who identified themselves as representatives of the Cypriot companies Formigos Holdings Ltd and Rewein Ltd) announced the purchase by their entities of 100% of the shares of Mariupol-based Ilyich-Stal CJSC, which holds 90,4% of the shares of Ilyich Iron and Steel Works of Mariupol.
The Ilyich plant management was in real shock at the capital's press conference, as they understood that Rinat Akhmetov For more than a decade, he has been trying to gain control of this largest enterprise in the Donetsk region, and through his junior partner in the mining and metallurgical holding company Metinvest, Vadim Novinsky, he began a fight for control of this one of the largest enterprises in Ukraine.
After a month of formal resistance, Vladimir Boyko and his team merged their company with Akhmetov and Novinsky by July 2010, betraying both the workforce and the minority shareholders. In exchange, the family of the former "red director" received a 5% stake in Metinvest and retained control over a portion of the plant's sales.
As a result, over the next five-year period, more than half of the Ilyich Steel plant's staff was laid off, and shareholders received meager returns for the Ilyich Steel shares they had entrusted to the plant at Boyko's request. Akhmetov and Novinsky also dealt with the Boyko family, seizing their stake in Metinvest after Volodymyr Semenovych's death this summer. As we can see, the Kherson port has been luckier so far.
Of course, it's not a given that Pavlo Ryabikin will be appointed minister under the current parliamentary setup. However, even the very fact that the possibility of bringing back officials who performed in such a manner during the "dear friends" era is even being discussed demonstrates how short Petro Oleksiyovych's memory and bench are today.
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