Alexander Danylyuk
Following the announcement of Oleksandr Danylyuk's appointment as the new Minister of Finance, the British firm he led until recently hastily changed its description of its activities. The information on the British firm's website was edited yesterday. Danylyuk's company decided to remove information about its involvement in the acquisition of land in the Kyiv region and other Ukrainian cities on behalf of investors.
Yesterday, on the eve of Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Oleksandr Danylyuk's nomination for the post of Finance Minister , media outlets published information about the official's business. The primary source of this information was Ihor Prokhorenko, a representative of the organization "Civil Control." He reported on his Facebook page that the Presidential Administration official, until recently, combined his government post with the directorship of two London-based companies: Rurik Real Estate Investment Limited and CEE Investments & Advisory LLP.
Danylyuk himself later admitted on social media that he had been the CEO of the investment company Rurik Investment Group from 2007 to the end of 2010, until he moved to Ukraine. At that time, he allegedly resigned as the company's CEO and sold his stake.
Information:
After returning to Ukraine, Danylyuk became an advisor to then-President Viktor Yanukovych, and from autumn 2010 to February 2014, he headed the Coordination Center for the Implementation of Economic Reforms. This organization was under the patronage of Yanukovych's head of administration, Serhiy Lyovochkin.
"The company itself has not conducted any business activity since then, but has begun a restructuring to optimize expenses," the soon-to-be Minister of Finance wrote. Danylyuk also added that he was not involved in the restructuring and has not received any income from the company's operations for a long time. The official also noted that he was a partner, not a director, at the second British firm, CEE Investment & Advisory LLP. "The income from the partnership—11152 pounds—is listed in my 2015 tax return," Danylyuk clarified. "This money came from the restructuring of Rurik Investment Group, which CEE Investment & Advisory LLP handled."
However, the future Minister of Finance did not tell everything.
As Glavkom discovered, yesterday, April 13, Danylyuk's former partners from Britain hastily changed the description of their activities on the company's official website.
Thus, as early as mid-day yesterday, the author of this article managed to read on the website of Rurik Real Estate Investment Limited that the firm specializes in real estate investments "in Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on Ukraine." The company specified that it acts as a "real estate investor in the Ukrainian real estate market in the short and medium term," acquiring "land banks on favorable terms." These assets were offered to investors for purchase or for the development of joint projects. "Our main area of activity is the Kyiv region, large and medium-sized cities of Ukraine," the company's website stated. Furthermore, it was stated that the British firm, with a "strong local network in Ukraine," provides services "selecting the location of a future asset, managing complex acquisition processes, consolidating multiple land plots, rezoning to ensure development..."
This description had disappeared from the site by yesterday evening – the owners had replaced it with another one, in which the words “Ukraine” and “Kiev region” no longer appeared.
The missing business description can now only be found using Google Cashe, a search engine that allows you to view website content prior to recent changes.
This is how this text looked until recently:
In the top photo, we've marked with a red rectangle that Google last scanned the site on April 8, 2016. At that time, as well as early yesterday, the business description for Rurik Real Estate Investment Limited looked exactly as shown in the screenshots: it offers investors services for the acquisition of Ukrainian land, including in the Kyiv region.
Now the website looks different: it no longer mentions Ukraine. Instead, the company offers real estate investment brokerage in large and medium-sized cities across Eastern Europe.
The business card of the British company with which the Ukrainian official is associated currently looks like this:
It's worth noting that Danylyuk's former partners made another important update yesterday. A new entry, dated April 13, 2016, appeared in UK company registers, indicating that Alexander Danylyuk was dismissed from his position as director of Rurik Real Estate Investment Limited in May 2015.
This clears the future minister of any suspicions that he combined civil service in the administration of President Petro Poroshenko (since September 2015) with the management of a British company.
Fedor Orishchuk, "Glavcom"
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